Friday, December 31, 2021

Letter from the 7th Illinois Infantry, May 1, 1863

CAMP SEVENTH ILL. VOL. INFANTRY,
CORINTH, MISS., May 1, 1863.

While sitting here in my quarters near the once beautiful but now desolate city of Corinth, I have been thinking of my country's troubles, and of the mad ambition of wicked men to ride to power over the ruins of the American Union; who are striving to subvert civil liberty, inaugurate a despotism and shut the gates of mercy upon down-trodden people. But when I look to the front where the Union armies are struggling as armies have scarcely ever struggled, struggling for the world's last and only hope, I feel hopeful, for I know all goes well there; no political strife troubles them, but all are of one mind, one aim, one faith and one hope. That mind is for the salvation of the Union—that aim is to transmit it unimpared to posterity—that faith is that this Union will be saved—saved from despotism—saved from slavery's black curse. That hope is that Omnipotence will soon smile upon these fields of blood, and sustain liberty with His heart and hand—will soon check the tide of war and stay this great sacrifice of human life, giving to us a peace—a happy, glorious, conquered peace. But when I look to its rear around the home of my childhood, and behold there so many comforting, and thereby giving aid to those who are waging the wicked war against the flag of my country, my heart is made sad, and I am prompted to exclaim oh! my country! my country! will she live? will she pass safely through this night of war? will the graves that have been made, the prayers that have been offered, and the tears that have been shed, be made, offered and shed in vain? We answer that with a united north the great republic of the west will live, and the future will see it standing peerless amid the grand galaxy of nations, fulfilling a destiny that will illumine with its magnificent splendor the whole world, and shed its blessings of peace and prosperity upon generations yet unborn.

Loyal people, the appeal that goes up to you from this southland—that goes up from camp and grave, from hospital and prison pen, is couched in this language, Oh! stand firm; do not abandon the Union to the mad men; do not forsake liberty in its present great trial; do not cast a shade upon our last resting place; be true, oh! be true to the cause for which we gave our lives a willing sacrifice; listen not to the hair-splitting technicalities and specious sophistries of corrupt and unprincipled men. The soldiers have watched and are watching the northern traitors—their course in Congress is remembered—how they refused support to those brave men whose life-blood tinted the waters of the Potomac when rebel guns thundered over the heights of Arlington, sending echoes of treason away to Washington's tomb. We remember how they have slandered the brave men who died that this nation might not perish from the earth.

SOURCE: Daniel Leib Ambrose, History of the Seventh Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry, p. 161-63

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