We have intelligence from the North that immense
preparations are being made for our destruction; and some of our people begin
to say, that inasmuch as we did not follow up the victory at Manassas, it was
worse than a barren one, having only exasperated the enemy, and
stimulated the Abolitionists to renewed efforts. I suppose these critics would
have us forbear to injure the invader, for fear of maddening him. They are
making this war; we must make it terrible. With them war is a new
thing, and they will not cease from it till the novelty wears off, and all
their fighting men are sated with blood and bullets. It must run its course,
like the measles. We must both bleed them and deplete their pockets.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 76
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