A correspondent of a Boston commercial house who has been traveling recently in Kentucky and Tennessee, writes home that his personal observation lead to the belief that the cotton States, will return to their allegiance as soon as they see that success of the Government is a sure thing. He says:
“I clearly find very much less serious damage to the portions of Tennessee and Kentucky I have visited than I expected, owing to the fact I presume, that the armies of the South have occupied only a few points and been moved by railroad long distances and have never numbered anything like the men in one body, that we were led to suppose. Union men may be found with unacknowledged and unpaid claims for forage and food, while as a general thing in this region, they paid their friends. Both such places and cases are not numerous compared with the extent of the population of the State, and will therefore produce no great general losses. – How strong the faith of the people of this section was, and is as to the success of the rebellion, you may judge of, when I tell you that nearly all who took the rebel money parted with it at the best going rate, or else went South and bought cotton. The result is that only a small portion of such money remains in this region, and that the loss will eventually fall upon the cotton States. The facts I have named lead me to the conclusion that Tennessee and Kentucky will be much less impoverished than I had supposed and that the cotton States will be much more so.
“I now feel confident that the superior power of the North is realized by nearly all of the people who have come within the lines of our army, and although there is an undeniable strong belief that the southern army will prevail against us, yet it is equally undeniable that it arises solely from a blind infatuated hope that the south can never be conquered and is not based on any reason or calculation whatever. I am equally satisfied that a large majority desire peace and are sick of the war, that they would like to conquer, but failing to do so will be prepared whenever the result becomes too clear to doubt it, to withdraw from all active efforts to continue the war, and submit to a necessity they have not the power to resist. Beyond the mere boasting of speech, I cannot see any evidence or signs whatever of willingness to die in the last ditch, or to transmit the war to their children and never submit all their own actions wherever our army has gone gives the lie to all such pretensions. Ask them as I have, alone, why they have submitted, and the reply is, we had not the power to resist, but the people further South never will to which I replied they will do precisely as you have done under like circumstances. There is a humility of manner and moderation of speech among them unexpected by many, but not by me, and I predict a like result wherever our army goes, if not defeated. – I have been kindly received in several rebel strongholds in Tennessee, I find things better than I expected. I have spoken openly and freely, and been listened to kindly and attentively. The newspapers of New York, (including the Tribune) of Cincinnati, Louisville and St. Louis, find ready sale and circulation. Light is coming in upon them, they begin to appreciate the fact that we have been lied about, that they are kindly treated, and that our sole object is the restoration of the Union as it was. Strange to say I have not heard a man speak unkindly of Mr. Lincoln”
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 17, 1862 p. 1
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