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.
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