write:Despite condemning thewar according to this account Hardin foolishly let amisguided sense of patriotism rather than hisconscience guide his actions. His decision to follow“th

wicked
and wrong.” He most certainly did not say this in 1846.But antiwar voices played fast and loose with the factsof Hardin’s biography in their attempt to turn Hardin’sdeath into a cautionary tale. Despite condemning thewar
according to this account
Hardin foolishly let amisguided sense of patriotism
rather than hisconscience
guide his actions. His decision to follow“that treacherous and illusive motto
‘Our country
rightor wrong
’ ” became the cause of his undoing. “Fromthat hour
the wrath of heaven seems to haveovershadowed him.”33While Yates never went so far as to claim that Hardinthought the war needless
wicked
and wrong
his ownviews about the war were clear to everyone in theaudience
and not far from those holding sway in NewEngland. But because the Boston reporter missed Yates’seulogy and focused only on the pre- and post-funeralcelebration
he believed that the people of Illinoiscontinued to embrace the war. Had he been privy to theconversations between Sarah Hardin and her husband’smen in the Hardin home after the funeral
he might nothave claimed that the returning volunteers “express
atpresent
very little or no opinion at all as to theirfeelings.”34 But his assumption that the people of Illinoisfelt the same in the summer of 1847 as they had a yearearlier was mistaken. The antiwar spirit that had movedRichard Yates was on the rise
even in the pro-war West.Yates hardly would have dared question the warotherwise. Abraham Lincoln would not have made thesame mistake as his traveling companion. He knew therewas a change in the air.It started long before the funeral. David Daviscommented on the decline in war spirit in Illinois inDecember 1846: “Everyone around here was anxious to