Robert D. Ilisevich, "Grow, Galusha Aaron," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/04/04-00444.html.
His combativeness and leadership role among the radical Republicans enabled Grow to become Speaker of the House after the party's successes in 1860. His defiant attitude did not mellow. He warned that no foot of American soil would be sacrificed to the secessionists until it was first "baptized in fire and blood." The southern conspiracy against the Constitution had to be totally destroyed, he insisted. For many years afterward, he clung to the conspiracy theory and remained one of the last Republicans to abandon "bloody shirt" politics of recriminations against the Democrats and the South.