“Friendly Fire” The American Civil War (1861-65) was the deadliest military conflict in United States history, with an estimated 655,000 fatalities on both sides, almost as many as all its other wars combined. Yet, in what must rank as one of the truly great ironies of that tragic conflict, which pitted countrymen and brothers against each other, its first and final fatalities were all Union, and caused by “friendly fire.” The Civil War began with the bombardment of Fort Sumter, South Carolina by Confederate forces on April 12 th . Though hardly believable, neither side suffered any deaths from the long artillery exchange. Yet, tragedy struck a Union salute at the surrender ceremony on April 14 th . A cannon fired accidentally in an explosion which took the lives of two military personnel. (In another irony, Abraham Lincoln would be shot four years later to the day.) It is more difficult to pinpoint the exact end of the Civil War, but one could hardly be faulted for citing as its formal conclusion the capture of fleeing Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, at Irwinville, Georgia on the morning of May 10, 1865. As the First Wisconsin Cavalry and the Fourth Michigan Cavalry converged from different directions on the Davis encampment in the predawn darkness, members of the two units began firing at each other in a sad case of mistaken identity. Before a Union officer could call a halt to the firing, two Union troopers had been killed by their own men. No Southerner had fired a shot. Thus may the American Civil War be said to have begun and ended with Union fatalities in “friendly fire” incidents which brought no deaths either by, or to, their foes. “Friendly fire” is an oxymoron, nay, a misnomer, which yet aptly describes what occurs when brethren in the Lord’s church fight with each other with such vehemence and even viciousness that the objective of such encounters becomes the prideful winning of debates rather than the saving of souls, and spiritual divisions, wounds, and fatalities are the sad and tragic aftermath. This is not to deny that there are times when the truth must be vigorously defended. Even Christ made a scourge and drove animals and their sellers out of the temple and overturned the tables of the moneychangers (Jn. 2:14-16). Yet, nothing justifies brethren in getting so angry at one another that they resort to the ways and weapons better suited to worldly conflicts and use tactics such as lying, name-calling, and shouting to overwhelm their brethren as if they were their enemies. There is nothing “friendly” about the “fire” which takes place in such exchanges. Abraham began the effort to resolve a conflict between his herdsmen and his nephew Lot’s with the words, “Please let there be no strife between you and me …, for we are brothers” (Gen. 13:8). Paul rebuked the Corinthians for suing one another by saying, “I say this to your shame …, but brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers” (1 Cor. 6:5,6). Instead, Christ said, “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn. 13:35). The losses suffered among both brethren and those who might have become brethren had they not observed such “friendly fire” among them, must, no doubt, be enormous. Satan is surely the one left holding the field when it is strewn with the souls of brethren who, in a sad case of mistaken identity, have poured “friendly fire” on one another. If any should know to appreciate, preach, and practice peace, love, and kindness with one another, it is those who can claim each other as dear brethren in the common faith and the noble cause and have been saved from the clamoring disputes which mark the conflicts of real foes. When brethren engage in such “friendly fire,” then must be heard the call for a “cease fire.”