He who runs may read. Conscription means that we are in a
tight place. This war was a volunteer business. To-morrow conscription
begins—the dernier ressort. The President has remodeled his Cabinet,
leaving Bragg for North Carolina. His War Minister is Randolph, of Virginia. A
Union man par excellence, Watts, of Alabama is Attorney-General. And
now, too late by one year, when all the mechanics are in the army, Mallory
begins to telegraph Captain Ingraham to build ships at any expense. We are
locked in and can not get “the requisites for naval architecture,” says a
magniloquent person.
Henry Frost says all hands wink at cotton going out. Why not
send it out and buy ships? “Every now and then there is a holocaust of cotton
burning,” says the magniloquent. Conscription has waked the Rip Van Winkles.
The streets of Columbia were never so crowded with men. To fight and to be made
to fight are different things.
To my small wits, whenever people were persistent, united,
and rose in their might, no general, however great, succeeded in subjugating
them. Have we not swamps, forests, rivers, mountains — every natural barrier?
The Carthaginians begged for peace because they were a luxurious people and
could not endure the hardship of war, though the enemy suffered as sharply as
they did! “Factions among themselves” is the rock on which we split. Now for
the great soul who is to rise up and lead us. Why tarry his footsteps?
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 147-8
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