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