General Grant was reviewing his troops and came near the closest lines to the Confederate Army. As he did the Union guards saw him and announced to all the soldiers in the vicinity to come out of their tents and present themselves to the general. General Grant said, :"Forget it. Just let the men go back to their tents." The Confederate guards had heard from across the battle lines what had been going on. So the Confederate officers called to their men to stand at attention for General Grant. They all assembled and saluted the General and he returned their salute.
The lesson. We are all Americans. We all believe in Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Just we are disagreeing about what is just.
[This is not to imply that General Grant was right. Rather as is the case with many issues of justice, there is ambiguity. The odd thing is that General Grant stated in his writing down his account of the war, mentioned one justification. That the slaves would eventually reproduce and then since they would hate the whites, they would exterminate the whites. So with that in mind it was important to free the slaves so the nation would be whole. But was that the result? Are now things any different? Is now hatred of whites any less? Is there longer any less desire to exterminate the whites? He forsaw that with enough numbers the result would be that the slaves would attempt to destroy all white people. So is that any different from things now?]