HEADQUARTERS
CONFEDERATE STATES ARMIES,
February 24, 1865.
HIS EXCELLENCY Z. B. VANCE,
Governor of North Carolina, Raleigh.
GOVERNOR: The state of despondency that now prevails among
our people is producing a bad effect upon the troops. Desertions are becoming
very frequent, and there is good reason to believe that they are occasioned to
a considerable extent by letters written to the soldiers by their friends at
home. In the last two weeks several hundred have deserted from Hill's corps,
and as the divisions from which the greatest number of desertions have taken
place are composed chiefly of troops from North Carolina, they furnish a
corresponding proportion of deserters. I think some good can be accomplished by
the efforts of influential citizens to change public sentiment and cheer the
spirits of the people. It has been discovered that despondent persons represent
to their friends in the army that our cause is hopeless, and that they had
better provide for themselves. They state that the number of deserters is so
large in the several counties that there is no danger to be apprehended from the
home-guards. The deserters generally take their arms with them. The greater
number are from regiments from the western part of the State. So far as the
despondency of the people occasions this sad conditions of affairs, I know of
no other means of removing it than by the counsel and exhortation of prominent
citizens. If they would explain to the people that the cause is not hopeless,
that the situation of affairs, though critical, is so to the enemy as well as
ourselves, that he has drawn his troops from every other quarter to accomplish
his designs against Richmond, and that his defeat now would result in leaving
nearly our whole territory open to us; that this great result can be
accomplished if all will work diligently, and that his successes are far less
valuable in fact than in appearance, — I think our sorely-tried people would be
induced to make one more effort to bear their sufferings a little longer, and
regain some of the spirit that marked the first two years of the war. If they
will, I feel confident that with the blessing of God what seems to be our
greatest danger will prove the means of deliverance and safety.
Trusting that you will do all in your power to help us in
this great emergency,
I remain, very
respectfully, your obedient servant,
R. E. LEE,
General.
SOURCE: John William Jones, Life and Letters of
Robert Edward Lee: Soldier and Man, p. 359
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