By 1861 Armando had lain cold in his grave for 45 years. The leaders of the territories had completed their propaganda blitz, which got people sufficiently riled-up to kill their neighbors from the southern states. Philosophical differences, perceived injustices, religious and ethnic rivalries were stoked to a point of explosive combustion. Biases and inflammatory contention were published daily in the newspapers. These false stories were believed by the northern and southern populace of the great nation of the United States of America. It took 40 years of propaganda before the first spark was ignited in a powder keg of man's creation. When the tinder box was first lit at Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12, 1861, all the hundreds of reasons that were used to justify the civil war, ignited as planned. The real reason for the war was disguised and well-hidden. That reason, when you stripped away the gaudy decorative clothing it wore, revealed the truth. It was greed, pure and simple. War supported industry and made room for the victorious to expand and grow. The vanquished became the slaves who fueled the labor forces needed for rapid expansion. Modern political leaders, and the Kings and Queens before them, knew this truth; that wars created prosperity for rich industrial barons and leaders of the armies. The only losers were the combatants who fought the battles and the villagers who were trampled underfoot.The previous hundred years had seen fair-skinned European immigrants fight with each other over the spoils of the vast North American continent. They conquered and defeated the Indigenous Native people into submission. The Native's land was stolen, and the remainder of their population was corralled onto reservations, conveniently located to suit the industrial needs of the new Americans. The Sentinel Hill mansion had grown throughout this period. The next 150 years would write a different outcome. The American Civil war was a classic example of neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother. Their patriarch Armando, who had built the mansion and established the thriving estate, had predicted this civil war sixty years before it started. This story follows the moral collapse of a nation's people, the prosperity of a few and the devastation of the majority, with Sentinel Hill at it's epicenter.Visit my website at: http: //kennethchamberlin.wixsite.com/author