Fourteen Miles From Richmond

The telegraph tells us this morning that our forces have a telegraph station near the fourteen mile post from Richmond.  This must be a consoling thought to those Richmond editors who have been for carrying the war across the Ohio and to the homes of the “Yankees.”  The people, too, must be slightly uneasy.  Imagine a rebel army at LeClaire, (not the advanced guard, which some people say is there now) flushed with victory, having just taken Dubuque, (not a very violent supposition) and driven the Union army out of Lyons.  Imagine such an event, and we may faintly appreciate the feelings of the people of Richmond, they anxiety and terror, their terrible forebodings of evil, their sleepless nights and anxious days, all intensified by their venal press, which, instead of soothing the fears of the people, is no doubt following the example of its cotemporaries in other Southern cities, and picturing to the citizens the horrors of the occupation of their city by the Yankees.  But there is a bright side to the picture.  To many of the down-trodden citizens of that capital, we have indubitable evidence that the booming of the national cannon will be a token of deliverance they have long waited for, and hoped for in their country’s darkest hours.  We hope that before another Sabbath breaks over the land, their disenthrallment will have occurred, and their beautiful city rejoice in a return of its ancient freedom – such as it can only enjoy under the American constitution.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday Morning, May 21, 1862, p. 1