Showing posts with label Southern Preachers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Southern Preachers. Show all posts

Sunday, April 16, 2023

Dr. Spencer G. Welch to Cordelia Strother Welch, September 16, 1863

Camp near Orange Court House, Va.,
September 16, 1863.

For two or three days we have been expecting another fight, and we had three days' rations cooked and were ready to move.

It now appears that the Yankees have all gone back and that they sent only their cavalry forward. We have a very strong position here, and it is doubtful if they will advance this way. I am inclined to think that we shall soon begin to maneuver for the autumn campaign. It is reported that Longstreet's Corps had orders to move, and it was thought that it would be sent to the Army of the West. A part of it has gone off somewhere, and some of Ewell's troops were also moving recently.

Two men will be executed in our division next Saturday for desertion, and the entire division will be ordered out to witness it. I have never cared to witness a military execution, although I have been near enough several times to hear the report of the guns. Two men deserted from our regiment two nights ago, and, if we get them again, and this we are apt to do, they are sure to be shot. There is no other way to put a stop to desertions.

We have a large number of preachers here now from home, who are preaching to the soldiers, and we have religious services in camp almost every day.

Lieutenant-Colonel Hunt's wife is here to see him. Many others—wives of privates as well as officers have come to visit their husbands. I think this is a very unsuitable place for women. If a battle should occur unexpectedly, they would all be in a nice fix.

My furlough has not been returned, but it has not had time, and it would also be delayed by the "rumpus” that the Yankees have just stirred up. I do not hope to have it approved

I now, but I am very apt to get home before Christmas. I have nothing more to tell this time, so good-by to you and little George.

SOURCE: Dr. Spencer G. Welch, A Confederate Surgeon's Letters to His Wife, p. 77-9

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: May 24, 1861

Congress passed, in secret session, a resolution to remove the seat of government to Richmond; but I learn it has been vetoed by the President. There is a strong feeling against going thither among some of the secessionists in the Cotton States. Those who do not think there will be a great deal of fighting, have apprehensions that the border States, so tardy in the secession movement, will strive to monopolize the best positions and patronage of the new government. Indeed, if it were quite certain that there is to be no war for existence — as if a nation could be free without itself striking the blow for freedom — I think there would be a party — among the politicians, not the people — opposed to confederating with the border slave States.

Some of his fellow-members tell many jokes on Mr. Hunter. They say every time he passes the marble-yards going up to the capitol, and surveys the tomb-stones, he groans in agony, and predicts that he will get sick and die here. If this be true, I predict that he will get the seat of government moved to Richmond, a more congenial climate. He has a way of moving large bodies, which has rarely failed him; and some of his friends at the hotels, already begin to hint that he is the proper man to be the first President of the permanent government. I think he will be President some day. He would be a safe one. But this whisper at the hotel has produced no little commotion. Some propose making him Secretary of War, as a sure means of killing him off. I know a better way than that, but I wouldn't suggest it for the world. I like him very much.

To-day the Secretary placed in my hands for examination and report, a very long document, written by a deposed or resigned Roman priest. He urged a plan to avert the horrors of war. He had been to see Lincoln, Gov. Letcher, etc., and finally obtained an interview on “important business” with President Davis. The President, not having leisure even to listen to his exordium, requested him to make his communication briefly in writing. And this was it — about twenty pages of foolscap. It consisted chiefly of evidences of the exceeding wickedness of war, and suggestions that if both belligerents would only forbear to take up arms, the peace might be preserved, and God would mediate between them. Of course I could only indorse on the back “demented.” But the old man hung round the department for a week afterward, and then departed, I know not whither. I forget his name, but his paper is in the archives of the government. I have always differed with the preachers in politics and war, except the Southern preachers who are now in arms against the invader. I think war is one of the providences of God, and certainly no book chronicles so much fighting as the Bible. It may be to the human race what pruning is to vegetation, a necessary process for the general benefit.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 41-2