asked to soften the description of Lincoln, whom Hawthorne referred to as "Uncle Abe", as homely, coarse, and unkempt: Though Hawthorne acquiesced to the editorial cuts, he lamented, "What a terrible thing it is to try to let off a little bit of truth into this miserable humbug of a world!" He believed the section was "the only part of the article really worth publishing." In its place, Hawthorne included a footnote which said, in part, "we are compelled to omit two or three pages, in which the author describes the interview, and gives his idea of the personal appearance and deportment of the President." "Chiefly About War Matters" was published in the July 1862 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, then edited by Fields. The removed excerpt was reinserted when republished in the collected works of Hawthorne edited by George Parsons Lathrop, who later married Rose Hawthorne, the author's daughter. In 1899, Horace Scudder asked Fields's widow, Annie Adams Fields, for permission to restore the omitted passages in a new publication of Hawthorne's works. Though these passages had already been printed in full, Scudder emphasized the previously "injudicious" material would be "harmless and quite interesting in 1900". Critical response Many readers of The Atlantic were offended by Hawthorne's essay, and the magazine received "cruel and terrible notes". The concern was partially because it was somewhat pro-southern, but also because it was antiwar. Others found it too ambiguous. George William Curtis condemned it as "without emotion, without sympathy, without principle". Hawthorne also offended many New Englanders by criticizing Ralph Waldo Emerson. Referring to John Brown as a "blood-stained fanatic", Hawthorne dismissed Emerson's assessment that his execution has "made the Gallows as venerable as the Cross!" Instead, Hawthorne concluded that "nobody was ever more justly hanged." Analysis Scholars struggle over how to interpret "Chiefly About War Matters". It has been described as ironic black comedy or satire. In the latter reading, the Peaceable Man and the footnotes added by his fictitious editor both lampoon the state of the country, not only the slave-holding South but also the censorious North. Notes References McFarland, Philip. Hawthorne in Concord. New York: Grove Press, 2004. . Mellow, James R. Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980. . Miller, Edwin Haviland. Salem is My Dwelling Place: A Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1991. . Swann, Charles. Nathaniel