Last night was bitter cold, and this morning there was ice
on my wash-stand, within five feet of the fire. Is this the “sunny South” the
North is fighting to possess? How much suffering must be in the armies now
encamped in Virginia! I suppose there are not less than 250,000 men in arms on
the plains of Virginia, and many of them who survive the war will have cause to
remember last night. Some must have perished, and thousands, no doubt, had
frozen limbs. It is terrible, and few are aware that the greatest destruction of
life, in such a war as this, is not produced by wounds received in battle, but
by disease, contracted from exposure, etc., in inclement seasons. But the
deadly bullet claims its victims. A friend just returned from the battle-field of
June, near the city, whither he repaired to recover the remains of a relative,
says the scene is still one of horror. So great was the slaughter (27th June)
that we were unable to bury our own dead for several days, for the battle raged
a whole week, and when the work was completed, the weather having been
extremely hot, it was too late to inter the enemy effectually, so the earth was
merely thrown over them, forming mounds, which the rains and the wind have
since leveled. And now the ground is thickly strewn with the bleaching bones of
the invaders. The flesh is gone, but their garments remain. He says he passed
through a wood, not a tree of which escaped the missiles of the contending
hosts. Most of the trees left standing are dead, being often perforated by
scores of Minie-balls, but thousands were prostrated by cannon-balls and
shells. It will long remain a scene of desolation, a monument of the folly and
wickedness of man.
And what are we fighting for? What does the Northern
Government propose to accomplish by the invasion? Is it supposed that six or eight
million of free people can be exterminated? How many butchers would be required
to accomplish the beneficent feat? More, many more, than can be sent hither.
The Southern people, in such a cause, would fight to the last, and when the men
all fell, the women and children would snatch their arms and slay the
oppressors. Without complete annihilation, it is the merest nonsense to suppose
our property can be confiscated.
But if a forced reconstruction of the Union were
consummated, does the North suppose any advantage would result to that section?
In the Union we could not be compelled to trade with them again. Nor would
intercourse of any kind be re-established. Their ships would be destroyed, and
their people could never come among us but at the risk of ill treatment. They
could not maintain a standing army of half a million, and they could not disarm
us in such an extensive territory.
The best plan, the only plan, to redeem the past and enjoy
blessings in the future, is to cease this bootless warfare and be the first to
recognize our independence. We are exasperated with Europe, and like the old
colonel in Bulwer's play, we can like a brave foe after fighting him. Let the
North do this, and we will trade with its people, I have no doubt, and a mutual
respect will grow up in time, resulting, probably, in combinations against
European powers in their enterprises against governments on this continent.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 205-7
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