The Confederate Cause
And Its Defenders.
An Address Delivered By
Judge George L. Christian
Before the Grand Camp of Confederate Veterans at the Annual Meeting held at Culpeper C. H., Va., October 4th, 1898, and published by Special Request of the Grand Camp.
Great wars have been as landmarks in the progress of nations, measuring-points of growth or decay. As crucibles they test the characters of peoples. Whether or not there is fibre to bear the crush of battle, and the strain of long contest:--not only in this determined; but also another matter, of yet more serious import, and of deeper interest to the student of history and to a questioning posterity. The grave investigator of to-day, searches the past to know whether man is of such character, whether the causes for which he has fought are such, that the future is always to be dark with "wars and rumors of war" He asks what men have regarded as sufficient causes of war? He does not enquire whether "the flying Mede" at Marathon, or the Greek with "his pursuing spear," are types of their nations: he rather seeks to know how the apparently unimportant action of an insignificant city, provoked the great Persian invasion. His question is, not whether Athens or Sparta bred the better soldier, but he searches the records to find out the causes of the Peloponnesian war.
He does not consider whether
Vercingetorix, standing a captive in the presence of Caesar, was, after all, the
nobler leader; nor whether Attila at Chalons was a greater general than Aetius,
nor why the sword of Brennus turned the scale on that fateful day at Rome. He is
more concerned to know why the Roman legions marched so far, and why the world
threw off the imperial yoke. The causes of wars test yet more deeply than
conduct in the field, the characters of peoples, indicate yet more surely what
hopes of peace or fears of war lie in the future, to which we are advancing.
The foregoing considerations press on no people on earth more
heavily than on those of the Southern States of this country.
The question of the justice of the cause for which our Southern men
fought and our Southern women suffered, in the great war which convulsed this
country from '61 to '65, will always interest the philosophical historian, who
will seek to know the motive that prompted the tremendous efforts of those four
years, and the character of the men who fought so hard. It must command the
attention of Confederate soldiers and their descendants for all time to
come.
During that contest (war), and
for many years after its close, there was no doubt as to this question in all
our Southern land, and this is the case with nearly all our mature and thinking
people to-day. I fear, however, that many of our children, misled by the false teachings of certain
histories used in the school
books of our schools, may have some misgivings on this all-important
subject.
As Carthage had no historian,
the Roman accounts of the famous Punic wars had to be accepted. All the blame
was, as a matter of course, thrown on Carthage, and thus "Punica Fides" became a
sneering by-word to all posterity. And so it has
been, until recently, with the South. For many years
after the war, our people were so poor, and so busily engaged in" keeping the
wolf from their doors," that they lost sight of everything else.
The shrewd, calculating, and wealthy Northerners, on the other hand,
realized the importance of trying to impress the rising generation with the
'justice' of their cause; and to that end they soon flooded our schools with
histories, containing their version of the contest (war), and in many of
these "all the blame" (as in the
case of Carthage), is laid on the South.
In view of these facts, I have
thought it not only not improper, but perhaps, a sacred duty, to call attention
to some things which have impressed me very much, and some which so far as I
know, have not heretofore been brought to the attention of our Southern
people.
I shall not, in this address,
discuss the Confederate Cause from the standpoint of a Southerner at all.
Indeed, this has been done so thoroughly and ably by President Jefferson Davis,
Mr. Stephens, Dr. Bledsoe, and others, as to leave but little, if anything to be
said from that point of view. I propose to set in order certain facts which will
show: (1) What the people of the North said and did during
the war to establish the justice of our Cause, and what they have said and
done to the same end since its close; and (2) What
distinguished foreigners have said about that cause, and the way the war was
conducted on both sides. It seems to me that an answer to these enquiries is
worthy of the gravest consideration, and ought to make its impression on any
reflecting and unprejudiced mind.
I am profoundly thankful that
in these latter days, our own people have become aroused to the importance of
presenting the truth of this great struggle, and that the
result has been to produce some very good histories by Southern authors, giving
the facts as to the causes which led to the war, and those as to its conduct by
both parties. For these indispensable books, we are indebted almost solely to
the influence of the Confederate Camps and kindred organizations which have
sprung up all over the South.
Passing over the history up to the year 1864, we find the people of the North
were then greatly agitated on the question of the propriety of the war, its
further prosecution and the manner in which it was being conducted by the
administration (Lincoln) then in power. The opposition
to the war and Lincoln's administration was led by Vallandingham, of Ohio, with
such boldness and ability, as to cause his arrest and temporary
imprisonment.
In the Presidential contest of that year, Lincoln and Johnson were the
candidates of the Republican, or war party,
and McClellan and Pendleton were those of the Democratic, or
peace party. The convention which nominated McClellan and
Pendleton was one of the most representative bodies that ever assembled in this
country. It met in the city of Chicago on the 29th of August, 1864, with
Governor Horatio Seymour, of New York, as its chairman.
An idea of the temper of the
convention may be gathered from an extract from one of the speeches delivered in
it by Rev. C. Chauncey Burr, of New Jersey, which is as follows:
"We had no right to burn their (Southern) wheat-fields, steal their pianos,
spoons or jewelry. Mr. Lincoln had stolen a good many thousand negroes, but for
every negro he had thus stolen, he had stolen ten thousand spoons. It had been
said that, if the South would lay down their arms, they would be received back
into the Union. The South could not honorably lay down her arms, for she was
fighting for her honor."
Mr. Horace Greeley
says that Governor Seymour, on assuming the chair, made an address showing the
bitterest opposition to the war; "but his polished sentences seemed
tame and moderate by comparison with the fiery utterances volunteered from hotel
balconies, street corners, and wherever space could be found for the gathering
of an impromptu audience; while the wildest, most intemperate
utterances of virtual treason -- those which would have caused
Lee's army, had it been present, to forget its hunger and rags in an ecstacy of
approval -- were sure to evoke the longest and loudest plaudits."
This convention adopted a
platform containing these, among other, remarkable declarations:
"That after four years
of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under
the pretence of a military necessity of a war power higher than the
Constitution, the Constitution has been disregarded in every part. Justice,
humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made
for the cessation of hostilities, with the ultimate convention of all the
States, that these may be restored on the basis of a federal union of all the
States, that the direct interference of the military authorities in the recent
elections was a shameful violation of the Constitution, and the repetition of
such acts will be held as revolutionary, and resisted; that the aim and object
of the Democratic party is to preserve the federal union and the rights of the
States unimpaired, and that they consider the administrative usurpation of
extraordinary and dangerous powers, not granted by the Constitution, as
calculated to prevent a restoration of the Union; that the shameful disregard of
the administration in its duty to our fellow-citizens--prisoners of
war--deserves the severest reprobation," &c., &c.
It will thus be seen that
this platform charged the party in power (Lincoln) with
the very offenses which the people of the South complained of and which caused
(forced) the Southern States to secede.
It charged that the "Constitution had been disregarded in every part"; it declared that "justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities "; it charged the (Lincoln) administration with the "usurpation of extraordinary and dangerous powers, not granted by the Constitution "; it charged it with direct interference in the elections, and with a shameful disregard of its duty to prisoners of war. The platform claimed that the object of the party adopting it was to preserve the Federal Union and the rights of the States unimpaired.
In a word, the grievances here
set forth were those of which the South was then complaining, and the principles
sought to be maintained those for which the South was contending. And in addition to these, the people of the South were then
exercising the God-given right and duty of defending their homes and firesides
against an invasion as ruthless as any that ever marked the track of so-called
civilized warfare.
So that the issue thus made by the people of the North among themselves was
really whether the war then being waged by them against the South was right or
wrong; and on that issue, thus clearly presented, out of four millions of
voters who went to the polls nearly one-half said, in effect, that the war was wrong, and that the
principles for which the South was contending--the "rights of the States
unimpaired "--were right, and that their overthrow
was to be resisted by all patriotic Americans.
Lincoln received 2,216,067 votes, whilst McClellan received 1,808,725 votes; the
latter receiving very nearly as many votes in the Northern States alone as
Lincoln had received in the whole country when he was elected in 1860,
his vote at that time being only 1,866,352.
I construe this as a
condemnation of their cause by nearly one-half the people of the North,
"out of their own mouths." It will be remembered
that in this election the soldiers in the field voted, and it is to be presumed,
of course, voted in support of the cause for Which they were then fighting .--
which fact alone would doubtless account for a very large part of the votes cast
for Mr. Lincoln. In this election, too, there was
again the most shameless interference by the military to carry the election for
Mr. Lincoln. When we consider these facts, I think the
result was truly remarkable, and something for the Northern people to think of
now, when many of them so flippantly taunt the Southern people with having been
"rebels" and "traitors." Let them ask themselves,
did not the South have a just cause, and did not nearly one-half the Northern
people so pronounce at the time?
As a sample of the
interference by the military authorities in that election,
General B. F. Butler tells us in his book how he
was sent by Mr. Stanton to New York with a military force to control that city
and State for Mr. Lincoln. He
says he stationed his troops conveniently near to every voting place in New York
city, and that "he took care that
the Southerners should understand that means would be taken for their
identification, and that whoever of them should vote (at all) would be
dealt with in such a manner as to make them uncomfortable"; and
"the result was," he says, that "substantially no Southerners voted at
the polls on election day."
I think these figures
and these facts demonstrate that if this election had been a fair one, without
the interference of the military (and higher ups), a
majority of the voters of the North would have said by their votes that the war
then being waged against the South was wrong, and would therefore have
stopped it of their own accord, because they were convinced
it was wrong, and contrary to "justice, humanity, liberty, and the public
welfare." [Many Northerners were very anti-Union and Centralization of a
powerful government. This fact was very played down all along to this current
day.]
It is most
interesting to notice the vote in some of the great States of the North in this
contest on the issue thus presented. Notwithstanding the interference by the
military, as above stated by General Butler, the vote in New York was 368,726
for Lincoln and 361,986 for McClellan, or a little over 6,000 majority for
Lincoln and his cause (Union). Can any one doubt what the result would have been
but for what General Butler says he and his troops
did?
In Pennsylvania the vote was 296,389 for Lincoln, and 276,308 for McClellan.
That in Ohio was 265,154 for Lincoln, and 205,568 for McClellan. That in Indiana
was 150,422 for Lincoln, and 130,233 for McClellan. That in Illinois was 189,487
for Lincoln, and 158,349 for McClellan. That in Wisconsin was 79,564 for
Lincoln, and 63,875 for McClellan. In New Hampshire it was 36,595 for Lincoln,
and 33,034 for McClellan. In Connecticut it was 44,693 for Lincoln, and 42,288
for McClellan; and whilst McClellan got the electoral votes of only New Jersey,
Delaware and Kentucky, it is shown by the large vote
he polled in all the States that the feeling of the people of the North against
their (Union) cause was not confined to any State or locality, but pervaded the
whole country; nearly every State, except perhaps Massachusetts,
Vermont, Kansas, Maine and West Virginia, endorsing the war policy of the
Republicans by smaller majorities than they have since given to the same party
on purely economic issues. And just think of it, my friends, that by a
change of 209,000 in a vote of more than four millions, a majority of the people of the North would
have voted that their (Union) cause was wrong, and that ours was
consequently right.
The virulence with which
McClellan's campaign was conducted cannot be better illustrated than by
incorporating here a notice of a political meeting to be held during that
canvass. This notice recently appeared in a number of The Grand Army Record,
and is as follows:
"DEMOCRATS ONCE MORE TO THE BREACH !
Grand Rally at
Bushnell, Friday, November 4th, 1864.
Hon. L. W. Ross, Major S. P. Cummings, T. E. Morgan, Joseph C. Thompson will address the people on the above occasion, and disclose to them the whole truth of the matter.
WHITE MEN OF McDONOUGH,
Who prize the Constitution of our Fathers;
who love the Union formed by their wisdom and compromise;
Brave
men who hate the Rebellion of Abraham Lincoln, and are determined to
destroy it;
Noble women who do not want their husbands and sons
dragged to the Valley of Death by a remorseless
tyrant;
Rally out to this meeting in your strength and
numbers.
CENTRAL COMMITTEE."
Mr. Greeley, in his American
Conflict, says:
"It is
highly probable that had a popular election been held at any time during the
year following the 4th of July, 1862, on the question of continuing the war, or
arresting it on the best attainable terms, a majority would have voted for
peace; while it is highly probable that a still larger majority would have voted
against emancipation."
The same
writer shows, too, not only how the successes or failures of the Northern armies
served as the financial gauge which marked the price of their gold from time to
time, but that these same successes or failures told in the elections the
measure of the devotion of the Northern people to their cause.
Not so with the people of the
South, who, in the darkest period of the war, February, 1865, and with a
unanimity never surpassed, resolved that their cause was the "holiest of all
causes," and declared their resolution "to spare neither their blood nor their
treasure in its maintenance and support." And even now (1898), a third of a
century after that cause went down in defeat, but not in dishonor, its
memories, though shrouded in sadness, are still a sacred and living factor in
their lives and being.
Just at this point I desire to consider what was said of our cause, especially
of the "right of secession," and of the conduct of the war on both sides,
by a distinguished English nobleman who, it must be presumed,
wrote from an unprejudiced standpoint.
:
In a work called The
Confederate Secession, written by the Marquis of Lothian, and published
in 1864 in Edinburgh and London, that writer, after reciting and discussing with
remarkable accuracy and ability the grievances of the Southern States, and the
cause which led to their secession from the Union, uses this language:
"I believe that the right of secession is so clear that if the South had wished
to do so, for no better reason than that it could not bear to be beaten in an
election, like a sulky school-boy out of temper at not winning a game, and had
submitted the question of its right to withdraw from the Union to the decision
of any court of law in Europe, she would have carried her
point."
He then draws the following
vivid contrast between the way war was conducted by the two parties. He
says:
"Let us however suppose the
Southern Secession to have been altogether illegal and uncalled for, or rather
let us turn away our eyes from the question altogether, and suppose that the
causes of the struggle are veiled in obscurity. Can we find anything in the
circumstances of the war itself which may induce us to take one side rather than
the other? Those circumstances have been very remarkable. This contest
(war) has been signalized by the exhibition of some of the best and some of
the worst qualities that war has ever brought out. It has produced a
recklessness of human life; a contempt of principles, a
disregard of engagements; a wasteful expenditure almost unprecedented; a
widely extended corruption among the classes who have any connection with the
government or the war; an enormous debt, so enormous as to point to
almost certain repudiation; the headlong adoption of the most lawless
measures; the public faith scandalously violated both towards
friends and enemies; the liberty of the citizen at the mercy of
arbitrary (Lincoln) power; the liberty of the press
abolished: the suspension of the
Habeas Corpus Act; illegal
imprisonments; midnight
arrests; punishments inflicted
without trial; the courts of law
controlled by satellites (States) of government;
elections carried on under military
supervision; a ruffianism both of word and action eating deep into the
country; contractors and stock jobbers
suddenly amassing enormous fortunes out of the public misery,
and ostentatiously parading their ill-gotten wealth
in the most vulgar display of luxury; the most brutal inhumanity in the
conduct of the war itself; outrages upon
the defenceless, upon women, children and prisoners; plunder, rapine,
devastation, murder,--all the old horrors of barbarous warfare, which
[even] Europe is beginning to be ashamed of, and new
refinements of cruelty thereto added, by way of illustrating the advance of
knowledge. It has also produced qualities and phenomena the opposite of
these. Ardour and devotedness of patriotism which might, alone be enough to make
us proud of the century to which we belong; a unanimity such as has probably
never been witnessed before; a wisdom in legislation; a stainless good faith
under extremely difficult circumstances; a clear appreciation of danger, coupled
with a determination to face it to the uttermost; a resolute abnegation of power
in favor of leaders in whom those who selected them could trust; with an equally
resolute determination to reserve the liberty of criticism, and not to allow those trusted leaders to go one inch beyond their
legal powers: a heroism in the field and behind the defences of
besieged cities, which can match anything that history has to show; a wonderful
helpfulness in supplying needs and creating fresh resources; a chivalrous and
romantic daring, which recalls the middle ages: a most scrupulous regard for the
rights of hostile property; a tender consideration for the vanquished and the
weak; a determination not to be provoked into retaliation by the most brutal
injuries, which makes one wonder, recollecting what those injuries have been,
whether in their place, one would have done as they have done. * * * And the
remarkable circumstance is * * * that all the
good qualities have been on the one side, and all the bad ones on the
other."
He then goes on to enumerate the splendid
instances of sacrifice and devotion of the people, especially of the women of
the South, and of the valor and heroism of the soldiers in the
field, but to recount these, would consume more space than would
be profitable in this discussion.
That this writer was
not singular in his opinions, in regard to our struggle, is manifest
from what Mr. Justin McCarthy tells us in the second volume of his "History of
our own Times." McCarthy was evidently an ardent sympathizer with the North, and
yet he says that in England
"the vast majority of what are called the governing
classes, were on the side of the South;" that "by far the greater number
of the aristocracy of the official world, of Members of Parliament, of Military
and Naval men were for the South;" that
"London Club life was virtually
Southern;" and that "the most
powerful papers in London, and the most popular papers as well, were open
partisans of the Southern Confederation."
And it is as certain as
anything that did not happen can be, that but for the fall of Vicksburg, and our
failure to succeed at Gettysburg in July, 1863 (both of which disasters came on
us at the same time), Mr. Roebuck's motion in Parliament for recognition by
England, which the Emperor Napoleon also was working hard to bring about, would
have been carried, and the Confederacy would then
have been recognized by both England and France. This recognition would have raised the blockade, and this was all
the South needed to insure its success. For as a distinguished
Northern writer, from whom I shall presently quote, said, "without their navy to
blockade our ports, they never could have conquered us."
Mr. Percy Greg, the justly famous
English historian, says:
"If the Colonies were entitled to judge
of their own cause, much more were the Southern States. Their rights -- rights
not implied, assumed, or traditional, like those of the Colonies, but
expressly defined and solemnly guaranteed by law -- had
been flagrantly violated; the compact which alone bound them, had beyond
question, been systematically broken for more than forty years by the States
which appealed to it."
After showing the perfect
regularity and legality of the Secession movement, he then says:
"It was in defence of this that the people of
the South sprang to arms 'to defend their homes and families, their property and
their rights, the honor and independence of their States to the last, against
five fold numbers and resources a hundred fold greater than theirs.'"
He says of
the cause of the North:
"The cause seems to me as bad as it
well could be; the determination of a mere numerical majority to enforce a bond,
which they themselves had flagrantly violated, to impose their own mere
arbitrary will, their idea of national greatness, upon a distinct, independent,
determined and almost unanimous people."
And he then says, as Lord
Russell did:
"The North fought for empire which
was not and never had been hers; the South for an independence she had won by
the sword, and had enjoyed in law and fact ever since the recognition of the
thirteen 'sovereign and independent States,' if not since the foundation of
Virginia. Slavery was but the occasion of the rupture, in no sense the object of
the war." Let me add a statement which will be confirmed by
every veteran before me, -- no man ever
saw a Virginia soldier who was fighting for slavery.
This writer then speaks Of the conduct of the Northern people as "unjust, aggressive, contemptuous of law and
right," and as presenting a striking contrast to the
"boundless devotion, uncalculating sacrifice,
magnificent heroism and unrivalled endurance of the Southern
people."
He then proceeds to tell how
the Constitution was adopted and the government formed by the individual States, each acting for itself, separately, and independently of the others, and
then says:
"It appears, then, from this review of
the origin and character of the American Union, that when the Southern States,
deeming the Constitutional compact broken, and their own safety and happiness in
imminent danger in from the Union, withdrew therefrom and organized their new
Confederacy, they but asserted, in the language of President Davis, ' the
rights of their sires, won in the War of the Revolution, the State sovereignty,
freedom and independence, which were left to us as an inheritance to their
posterity forever,' and it was in defence of this high and sacred cause that the
Confederate soldiers sacrificed their lives. There was no need of war. The
action of the Southern States was legal and Constitutional, and history will
attest that it was reluctantly taken in the last
extremity."
Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge,
one of the present Senators from Massachusetts, in his life of Webster,
says:
"When the Constitution was adopted by the votes of the
States at Philadelphia, and accepted by the States in popular conventions, it is
safe to say that there was not a man in the country, from Washington and
Hamilton on the one side to George Clinton and George Mason on the other, who
regarded the new system as anything but an experiment entered upon by the
States, from which each and every State had the right peaceably to withdraw -- a
right which was very likely to be
exercised."
These are clear and candid admissions on the part of these distinguished
Northerners that the Southern
States had the right to secede as they did, and were, therefore,
right in regard to the real issue involved in the war between the States.
There is but one other fact to
which I desire to call attention in this connection, and while it has often been
referred to, it cannot be too deeply impressed upon the minds of our people, and
ought, it seems to me, to be conclusive of this whole question -- and that
is, the refusal of the Northern people to
test the question of the right of secession by a trial of President
Davis; and this, notwithstanding the fact that since the cry,
"Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" went up
at Jerusalem, nearly two thousand years ago, I
believe there never was a time when a whole people were more willing to punish
one man than were the people of the North, who were in favor of
the war, to punish Mr. Davis for his alleged crimes as the leader of our
cause and people.
Mr. Davis was captured
on or about the l0th of May, 1865, near Washington, Ga., and straightway taken
to and confined in a casemate at Fortress Monroe. To show how eagerly these war
people of the North demanded his life, they attempted first to implicate him in
the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. It was even charged in a proclamation issued
by the President of the United States that the 'evidence' of Mr. Davis's
connection with that atrocious crime "appears from evidence in the Bureau of
Military Justice." This evidence consisted for the most part of affidavits of
witnesses secured by that vile wretch, Judge Advocate General Holt. A committee
of the then Republican Congress says of these:
"Several of these witnesses, when brought before the committee, retracted
entirely the statements which they had made in their affidavits, and
declared that their testimony as originally given was false in every
particular."
It is a part of the history of
the times, to use the language of a distinguished writer, that "the authorities
at Washington and Chief Justice Chase himself decided after full consideration
and consultation with the ablest lawyers in the country that the charge of
treason could not be sustained, and so the distinguished
prisoner, who was anxious to go into trial and vindicate himself and his cause
before the world, was admitted to bail, and finally a nolle prosequi
was entered in the case."
I
repeat that these proceedings are a virtual confession on the part of the
Northern people, that they were wrong, on the real question at issue in the war,
and therefore that the South was right.
It seems to me, that the facts
here set forth furnish such answers to these enquiries as ought to give pause to
those of the North, who still love to revile and defame the people of the South;
many doubtless delighting in this task now, who did not dare to come to the
front when their professed views of duty called them there; some of whom have
been convinced of the justice of their cause, only by
the savor of the "flesh pots," and the allurements of the pension rolls, which
the results of the war and the achievements of others, have put within their
grasp.
I would fain hope too, that
these pregnant facts will be pondered by our young people of the South, and if
there be more than one young Southerner who has said, as I heard that one did
say not long ago, of his old Confederate father, "the old man actually thinks he
was right in the war, "--that these facts will make
any such, not only feel and know that the cause of the South
was right,
and that the people of the South, almost as a
unit, espoused and loved that cause, but that as true men they love it still,
and that their children ought to feel alike proud of that cause and those who
defended it with their lives, their blood and their fortunes.
As some of the writers to whom
I have referred have said: 'There never was a people
engaged in any struggle who were more united or determined than were the people
of the South, in behalf of the cause of the Confederacy.' They
almost to a man, and certainly to a woman, believed in that cause, and as I have
said, supported it with their lives, their blood and their fortunes. The sayings
that "might makes right," and that "success is a test of merit," have grown into
proverbs. But there never were more fallacious and misleading statements than
these.
Appomattox was not a judicial
forum, but a battle-field, a simple test of physical power, where the Army of
Northern Virginia, "worn out with victory," and almost starving, surrendered its
arms to "overwhelming numbers and resources."
Therefore, I say that, so far as
the way the war ended is concerned, it proves, and can prove, nothing as to
which side was right or which was wrong. As we have
seen, our enemies brought us into their own courts, thus proclaiming to the
world that they were ready and willing to test the question judicially, and
after advising with the highest authorities on their side, of their own motion,
abandoned their case, and fled from the precincts of their own chosen tribunals.
We were in their power, and could do nothing but accept this, their own virtual confession that they, were
wrong.
We
need not fear, then, to submit our cause, or the way we conducted the war in its
defence, to the muse of history, and to await her verdict with "calm
confidence." Every day not only adds new lustre to the heroism and devotion of
our people, and the achievements of our armies in the field, but rewards
the researches of the unprejudiced historian with new and more convincing proofs
of the justice of our cause. What are thirty years in the life of a
nation? It was nearly two thousand years from the time when Arminius overcame
the legions of Varus in the Black Forest of Germany before a statue was reared
to the memory of that victor, and he was called the "Father of the Fatherland."
It was less than two hundred years from the time when Charles the II came to his
own, when the principles for which Cromwell and Hampden and Pym fought were
recognized by all English speaking peoples, as the only ones on which
constitutional liberty ever can rest.
OUR DEFENDERS.
Having said so much about our cause, I have only time to add a few words about
the defenders of that cause.
And
first, what shall I say, aye, what can I say, of the women of the South? For
they were among the first, and will be the last defenders of that
cause. I have no words in which to portray the admiration I
feel, and the homage I would love to pay to these devoted
patriots. Writers have often tried to set forth the story of their
services and sacrifices, but have turned away baffled at the contemplation of
the task. Poets who have sung the achievements of heroes and warriors have found
verse all too feeble to translate their loving deeds into song, and minstrels
with harps well-nigh attuned to suit the Angelic Choir, have before that theme
stood hesitant and abashed, with nerveless fingers and silent strings. It has
been proposed to rear a monument to these noble women. I would love to
contribute my mite to this undertaking. But I know too well that the highest
conception of artistic genius can never measure up to the task of fitly
portraying to the world the patriotism, heroism, devotion, and sacrifices of the
noble women of the Southland. They were and are, in the language of Wordsworth:
"Perfect women, nobly planned
To
warn, to comfort and command."
And what can I say of our leaders in that cause? It is no small thing to be able to say of them that they were cultivated men, without fear, and without reproach, and most of them the highest types of Christian gentlemen; that they were men whose characters have borne the inspection and commanded the respect of the world. Yes, the names of Jefferson Davis, of Lee, of Jackson, the Johnstons, Beauregard, Ewell, Gordon, Early, Stuart, Hampton, Magruder, the Hills, Forrest, Cleburne, Polk, and a thousand others I could mention, will grow brighter and brighter, as the years roll on, because no stain of crime or vandalism is linked to those names; and because those men have performed deeds which deserve to live in history. And what shall I say of the men who followed these leaders? I will say this, without the slightest fear of contradiction from any source: They were the most unselfish and devoted patriots that ever marched to the tap of the drum, or stood on the bloody front of battle.
The northern
historian, Swinton, speaks of them as the "incomparable infantry of
the Army of Northern Virginia." Colonel Dodge, a distinguished Federal officer,
in his lecture on Chancellorsville, before the "Lowell Institute" in Boston,
says:
"The morale of the
Confederate army could not have been finer." * * * "Perhaps no infantry was
ever, in its peculiar way, more permeated with the instinct of pure
fighting--ever felt the gaudiam certaminis more than the Army of Northern
Virginia."
Another gallant Federal colonel thus wrote of them:
"I take a just pride as an
American citizen, a descendant on both sides of my parentage of English stock,
who came to this country about 1640, that the
Southern army, composed almost entirely of Americans, were able, under the
ablest American chieftains, to defeat so often the overwhelming hosts of the North, which were composed largely of foreigners to our
soil; in fact, the majority were
(Foreign) mercenaries whom large bounties induced to
enlist, while the stay-at-home patriots, whose money bought
them, body and boots, 'to go off and get killed, instead of their own precious
selves, said let the war go on.'"
Another
Federal officer, writing after the battle of
Chancellorsville, says:
"Their artillery horses are poor, starved
frames of beasts, tied to their carriages and caissons with odds and ends of
rope and strips of rawhide; their supply and ammunition trains look like a
congregation of all the crippled California emigrant trains that ever escaped
off the desert out of the clutches of the rampaging Comanche Indians; the men
are ill-dressed, ill-equipped and ill-provided -- a set of ragamuffins that a
man would be ashamed to be seen among even when he is a prisoner and can't help
it; and yet they have beaten us
fairly, beaten us all to pieces, beaten us so easily that we are objects of
contempt even to their commonest private soldiers, with no shirts to hang out
the holes of their pantaloons, and cartridge boxes tied around their waists with
strands of rope."
I might add a thousand similar
commendations from those who fought us, but I cannot consume more of your time.
If you have not done so, I advise you by all means to procure and read The
Recollections of a Private, by a Northern soldier named Wilkinson, who was
in the "Army of the Potomac" during Grant's campaign from the Rapidan to
Petersburg, and describes, in a most entertaining and thrilling way, his
experiences in that army. Without intending it at all, I believe, and only
telling in his own style, the way in which that army was organized, controlled,
and fought, his recitals are a panegyric on the Army of Northern Virginia and
the glorious leaders of that army.
The London Index
has this to say of our army and our people:
"Let it be remarked, that while other nations have written their own histories,
the brief history of this army, so full of imperishable glory, has been written
for them by their enemies, or at least by luke-warm neutrals. Above all, has the
Confederate nation distinguished itself from its adversaries by modesty and
truth, those noblest ornaments of human nature. A heart-felt, unostentatious
piety has been the source whence this army and people have drawn their
inspiration of duty, of honor and of
consolation."
During his first
campaign in Italy Napoleon, in writing of his soldiers, uses this
language, which to my mind strikingly describes the soldiers which composed our
Southern armies. He says:
"They jest with danger and laugh at
death; and if anything can equal their intrepidity it is the gaiety with which,
singing alternately songs of love and patriotism, they accomplish the most
severe forced marches. When they arrive in their bivouac it is not to take their
repose, as might be expected, but to tell each his story of the battle of the
day and produce his plan for that of to-morrow; and many of them think with
great correctness on military subjects. The other day I was inspecting a
demibrigade, and as it filed past me, a common Chasseur approached my horse and
said, 'General, you ought to do so and so.' 'Hold your peace, you rogue,' I
replied. He disappeared immediately, nor have I since been able to find him out.
But the manoeuvre which he recommended was the very same which I had privately
resolved to carry into execution."
And so I heard a distinguished
Confederate soldier say that a private in the Army of Northern Virginia, sitting
on the side of the mountain, outlined to him one evening the whole plan of the
battle which was executed by the commanding general on the following day.
One by one the soldiers of the
Confederate armies are passing into history. Whilst they go, not like those of
the 10th Legion or the Phalanx, the representatives of victorious
warfare; yet they will go as the defenders of a
cause, which not only unprejudiced foreigners, but many of their former enemies,
both during and since the conflict, have pronounced just and
right; as soldiers who did' their
duty and whose defence of that cause was such as to challenge the admiration of
the world. I thank God that there is not linked with
the names of these men, the crimes of vandalism, which so often brought forth
the "widow's wail and the orphan's cry," and which so marked the desolated
track of those against whom they fought (north).
I thank
God too, that no pension scandal has ever linked its corrupt and corrupting
touch to the name of the Confederate soldier; that his support is not a menace
to the public treasury, but that he has "hoed his own row" and so lived as to
command the respect of the world, and not by the help of the
tax-gatherer, and amid the sneers and contempt of a long suffering and grateful
people.
Whilst the cause for
which they fought is a "lost cause" in the sense that they failed to establish a
separate government within certain geographical limits, yet it is only lost in
that sense. The principles of that cause yet live, and the deeds done by its
defenders were not done in vain.
No my friends,
"Freedom's battle
once begun
Bequeathed by bleeding
sire to son,
Though baffled oft
is ever won."
And now, my friends, I must
stop to say one word for myself and for you, about the true and noble people of
this battle-scarred, but still beautiful old county of Culpeper, in which it is
our privilege to meet, and to greet one another on this interesting occasion.
The record of this glorious people, won in the war
of the Revolution, was completely eclipsed by that made by them in the
Confederate war, and whilst "Cedar Mountain," "Brandy Station," and a hundred
other fields will ever attest the heroism and devotion of the Confederate
soldier, there is not a home or hamlet here that could not tell its story of the
heroism, hospitality and devotion of her Confederate men and women.
It is with a sense of
peculiar pride and pleasure then that we meet here to-night, not only with some
of the survivors of those who stood shoulder to shoulder on those bloody fields,
but with those men and women, and the descendants of those, who amidst the glare
of their burning homes, and the threats and tortures of a ruthless and
relentless foe, remained unwavering and unconquerable, and who are still true to principle and
to right. Yes, my old comrades, we stand upon historic ground to-night. The
rocky defiles of these mountains have echoed and re-echoed the thunders of
artillery and the rattle of musketry amidst the ringing commands of Lee and
Jackson, and the flashing, knightly sabres of Ashby, Stuart and Hampton. Here
banner and plume have waved in the mountain breeze, whilst helmet and blade and
bayonet were glittering in the morning sun; and here too, ah, shame to tell, history will record many a thrilling tale of
outrage inflicted upon this defenceless people by the mercenary hordes of the
North, permitted and encouraged by the remorseless cruelty and unquenchable
ambition of some of their leaders. Just think of the almost infinite
distance between the places these leaders will occupy in history, and those
already occupied by those immortal and incomparable commanders, who sleep side
by side at Lexington, and whose fame will grow brighter
and brighter as the years roll by. As the conquerers of Hannibal, of
Cæsar, and Napoleon have been almost forgotten amid the effulgence which will
forever cling to the names of these illustrious, though vanquished leaders,
so in the ages to come, the fame of Lee, of Jackson, the Johnstons, Stuart,
Ashby and others will outshine that of Grant, Sheridan and Sherman "like the Sun
'mid Moon and Stars."
And
I want to say, in conclusion, that to think and feel, as we think and feel about
the Confederate cause, does not mean that we are disloyal citizens of our now
united and common country. But on the contrary, it is just in proportion as we
are true and loyal to the cause of the South, that we will be true and faithful
citizens of our country to-day; because the principles for which the Confederate
soldier fought, are the only ones, as I have already said, on which
constitutional liberty can ever rest in this, or any other country. Yes, my
comrades and friends, be ye sure that
"The graves of our dead with the grass overgrown
Will yet form the footstool of
liberty's throne,
And each single
wreck in the war path of might
Shall yet be a rock in the temple of right."
And I therefore repeat the statement: The men who died for the Confederate cause, have not died in vain.
No,--
"They
never fail who die
In a great
cause. The block may soak their gore;
Their heads may sodden in the
sun; their limbs
Be strung to
city gates and castle walls;
But
still their spirits walk abroad. Though years
Elapse, and others share as dark
a doom,
They but augment the deep
and sweeping thoughts
Which
overpower all others and conduct
The world at last to freedom."
Source:
Southern Historical Society Papers. Vol. XXVI. Richmond, Va., January -
December. 1898.
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And it must be noted, that in this speech and presentation given in 1898, the truth still stands, although re-written in the history books of the South's surrender, that the South was FORCIBLY OCCUPIED, AND NEVER SURRENDERED. And the South will rise again as our brave and ever loyal president Jefferson Davis foretold would one day happen.
As you have read here just a FEW of the quotes and letters and newspaper clips have shown that even the North objected to Lincoln's dictatorial Federal Union, as well as many Foreign nations. To win the war, Lincoln could not do it with just the Northern American army; he had to bring in Foreign mercenaries against the poorly armed, dressed, and fed, Southern soldiers who fought with the hearts and souls for the Founder's Constitution and the rights and freedoms they gallantly fought to give us that Lincoln had destroyed. Had Lincoln not fought so dirty and illegally, the South would have won the war and the united States would have been the way our Founder's established it to be. But because Lincoln did not fight his war, that he started, the honorable way, and was determined to 'win' at any cost, everyone lost their freedom , their Founder's nation and government and Constitution. Everyone, both north and south became a slave to Lincoln's dictatorial UN-Constitutional system which carries through to this day.
The war never really ended, since no treaty or agreement was ever signed or made with the Confederate States of America (CSA) - so the war is still really in force, and the Federal Union is STILL occupying the south and still eliminating all semblance of what the south was ! Still today in the 21st century, the north's aggression still attacks the south. The Federal Union still arrests any southern militias, or forces our flags down , and has eliminated anything southern ! The north still fears us even though they occupy us - because they know we were, and are, right ! Lincoln fought a very dirty war, and did not do one honorable thing in it, and that has carried through to today, the same theme by the Federal Union. But I'd like to believe that we, the South, are still the honorable, brave, Christian, loyal-to-the-cause people we were back then, as we bravely continue to strive for the right, in the continuing war that has not ended, as the north has made everyone believe with their propaganda and false history.
For the South, the CSA, is about to rise again and re-claim the nation that was so criminally stolen and forced from them by such unscrupulous means.
People of the South, of the proud CSA, stand up ! Confederates stand proud - it is time to take back that which has been stolen from us ! Let us make our brave forefathers proud. Let us stand as bravely as they did, and fight as well and honorably as they did ! So honorable and brave were they, that the entire world took notice !
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Other links:
Lincoln and His Republican Party
Truth About the Civil War POW Camps
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