Brothers Reunited After Fighting Each Other During the Civil War
James Campbell and his brother Alexander immigrated to America in the 1850s. James settled in Charleston where he worked as a drayman and clerk; Alexander lived in New York and worked as a stonemason. On June 10, 1862, Alexander wrote to his wife about James: “We are not far from each other now…. This was a war that there never was the like of before – Brother against Brother.” At the Battle of Secessionville, they actually engaged one another, though neither was killed. When The Charleston Courier reported the story of these two young men on opposite sides of the line, they called it, “another illustration of the deplorable consequences of this fratricidal war.”
But both men lived through the civil war, and after the news of the war’s end was published, they were reunited and remained good friends as well as blood brothers until James died in 1907. Alexander lived another two years.
Note this: before news of Lee’s surrender in 1865, James and Alexander were trying to kill one another; afterward, they were brothers. The right news changes lives, behavior, thoughts and hearts. The resurrection of Jesus is that kind of news: life-changing truth which demands at least three responses from us today.
From a sermon by Glenn Durham, She Saw the Lord (Alive), 5/27/2010