Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Julia Gardiner Tyler to Julianna MacLachlan Gardiner, July 24, 1861

SHERWOOD FOREST, July 24, 1861.

You cannot think what a happiness your letter was to me yesterday. I had also received that one sent by express; but as I had written several times and you did not mention the receipt of one of my letters, I thought I would wait until I heard from you again before I trusted to any source. The notice you inclosed would avail me nothing. It could transmit letters to the seceded States, but not from them. A new advertisement has appeared in the papers of yesterday by which I see there is a promise of certain communication between the two sections. I enclose it. The President tells me to give you his best love, and say how much he admires you for the bright and intellectual view you take of things-the only true view; and all I have to say is, that those who take the opposite one have no conscience, or have never informed themselves upon the question.

Dr. Donnavant may talk now of the revival of feudal times, for never in the days of chivalry were there such knights as this infamous Northern war has made of every Southern man. Never was the thought of Union or of surrender farther removed from their bosoms. Nothing but evil has yet come of this war, and nothing but evil will come of it while it continues, unless it be of good to the South in uniting it in its one great resolve more thoroughly. You need never trust to Northern accounts of Southern defeat or conquest. Great conquest that of McClellan's to boast of, truly-20,000 to 5,000; but I doubt whether another defeat against any odds will occur again—where every man falls two will rise in his place. What a brilliant victory for the South has been the battle at Manassas! I wish I could send you a true account of it as it is given in the Richmond papers, and by Gen. Jefferson Davis' dispatches. I see even the Northern account admits a terrible defeat, aud great losses of all sorts. . .  .

Your affectionate daughter,
JULIA.

SOURCE: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, The Letters and Times of the Tylers, Volume 2, p. 652-3

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