1191 Series I Volume XLVII-II Serial 99 - Columbia Part II
Page 1191 | Chapter LIX. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. -CONFEDERATE. |
infamous submission. Should we willfully throw down and oranized government, disband our still powerful armies, and invite all these fearful consequences upon our country, we would live to have our children curse our grary hairs for fastening our dishonor upon them. I trust and believe that there will be little difference of opinion in North Carolina as to the propriety of continued resistance. The great argument which will be brought forward to snake your honor and intended to incite you to despair will be, that successful resistance is no longer possible. Some will tell you that we are already subdued; that the enemy outnumbers us; that our fighting men are all slain; our resources all exhausted, and we might as well submit now. This, my countrymen, is false, and as frequently proceeds from a craven or a traitors as from an honest but mistaken spirit. Great as our calamities have been, straightened as we are for all supplies bot of men and material, I tell you, in all candor, that when I survey our condition by the light of human history, I see no danger which threatens to be fatal to our cause, except this depression of spirit among the people, and the still more fearful risk of internal dissension. So long as we remain one, and determined, it is not in the power of our enemies to subdue us. "But except these abie in the ship, ye cannot be saved. "
All things may be supplied if we were but possessed of that bold and manly spirit of resistance to tyranny of which liberty and independence are born. That alone can fill the widow's barrel, and still the orphan's cryu; can cast cannons and builds ships of ward; can raise up armed men from the dust of the dragons' teeth; can wrest tangible realities from the very jaws of impossibility. Without it, numbers but add to the ignominy of certain defeat, even as the Persain millions were whipped and shamed by the 300 in the mountain pass. Are our men all slain? Over 400,000 names yet stand upon the muster-rolls of the Confederacy, to say nothing of the many thousands who shirk. Where are they? Thousands upon thousands, absent without leave, are lurking in the woods and swamps of the South. Are our provisions all gone? Hundreds of thousands of bushels of grain now rot at the various depots of the South for want of transportation; and this transportation cannot be protected because these absent soldiers are not at the post of duty. Oh, my countrymen, if you would but rise to entreat, to shame, to drive them back to their country's standard! Has our territory been overrun? It has, but how much of it has been held? The enemy marched triumphantly throught the heart of our sister. Georgia, and is she conquered? Except for the garrison at Savannah, and the ashes of sesolation on their track through the interior, Georgia has neither enemy nor the sign of enemy on her soil. So of most portions of the South Which space does not permit me to enumerate. For four years their countless legions have gnawed at the vitals of Virginia, yet to-day they claim not even all of her territory which is swept by their cannon. The cities they garrison, the land their armies actually stand upon, and the waters ridden by their fleets, are all that they really hold, or ever can hold except by our ignoble consent. Let the balance of our cities go, Mobile, Charleston, Willmington, Richmond, all, and if we are determined to be free our subjugation is quite as distant as over. For, thank God, the Confedaracy does not consist in brick and mortar, or particular, spots of ground, however valuable they may be a military of view. Our nationality consists in our people. Liberty dwells in the heart of her votaries and the ragged, barefooted soldiers, standing in the depth of the forest, or in the shadow of the mountain, can offer her sacrifices which
Page 1191 | Chapter LIX. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. -CONFEDERATE. |