Often forgotten, the nation's first modern morality war took place in the post-Civil War era and culminated with the passage of the Comstock Act in 1873. Comstock's obsession intensified, arresting Heywood three more times. ' One of America's great post-Civil War matchups pitted the country's leading moral crusader, Comstock, against two indomitable free-love and free-speech advocates, the sisters Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin.