Thursday, December 27, 2012

Southern Chivalry Illustrated

A New York correspondent writes:

“Among the mementoes brought here from the battle field of Manassas, is the skull of a New York Fire Zouave, which was picked up in an old hut near Bull Run.  A blow back [of] the right ear had shattered the skull nearly in two.  It has evidently been the property of some rebel, who has taken great pains to keep it in good condition, it having been polished and whitened.  On it is the following inscription, written in ink.”

“Skull of a New York Fire Zouave, killed July 21st, 1861, at the battle of Manassas Plains.”
Sic Semper Tyranus.


A correspondent of the Pittsburg Gazette at Washington, writes:


“A friend who spent nearly all of the last week at Manassas, and in the vicinity, came back yesterday loaded with relics of the ill-fated field of Bull Run, and some of the debris of headquarters.  He has a rare collection of letters in all styles of orthography, except the correct.  One letter was from a lady to her friend, thanking him for the gift he had sent her, and which had arrived safely at hand – in South Carolina.  Now, gentle reader, you who may perchance permit your eye to read upon this line, what think you was this gift?  Imagine this fair daughter of ‘Caroleena’ [illegible]ing to her fairy bower, ’neath the dark magnolia, in the shade of her orange grove, fanned by her dusky slave, while she snatches from the letter of her champion, ‘gone to the wars,’ his gift of love!  Precious token of his affection!  What was it?  A part of a dead man’s finger! Or in the language of the letter, ‘a bone from a Yankee’s finger!’”

What facts the rebels are putting into the head of Sumner to illustrate his theory of the barbarism of slavery.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 5, 1862, p. 2

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