On April 28, 1865 Kate Stone recorded her thoughts about the news of Abraham Lincoln's death. She wrote, "All honor to J. Wilkes Booth, who has rid the world of a tyrant and made himself famous for generations." She also mentions John H. Surratt in her praises for "daring" an attack on the Secretary of State William H. Seward, a well know abolitionist. Later she discovered it was Louis Powell, friend to Booth, who had attempted to take the life of Seward. Later in the entry, Kate commented she hoped the two "avengers" would escape to the South. She releases a torrent of anguish on Lincoln's memory by adding, "It is a terrible tragedy, but what is war but one long tragedy? What torrents of blood Lincoln has caused to flow, and how Seward has aided him in his bloody work." Kate wrote about the "gloom" that descended on her town, when news of Robert E. Lee and his army had been captured. She concludes her entry by stating that depression has taken everyone and she fears for her and her family's welfare if the slaves are freed.
That last sentence explains the real reason the South was upset to lose the war and has become so poor. The welathy white landowners were stripped of their "property", the freed slaves were treated like trash through the 1960s and never allowed to rise up economicially, and the industrial revolation in late 1800s made the South's economy obsolete.
They all still think that if they won the war they would still have slave labor and rich plantations...
