Eighty-eight years this day since our fathers gave to the world that
important document setting forth the immortal truth that all men are born free
with equal rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and declaring
the independence of these states from foreign domination—the Declaration
of American Independence. On these great truths they founded a Republic. Today
their posterity are in mourning for the loss of sons. In painful expectations,
in earnest hope and fear, their eyes are turned toward two mighty armies
contending on the same soil, one for those principles and that Republic, the
other battling to maintain a dying rebellion inaugurated to overthrow the work
of their hands, and to found a government on principles the reverse. Nothing
was ever more plainly asserted in both words and deeds than this. Here within
the scope of my vision, are 26,000 men suffering for the great sin that has
cursed our people, offered a living sacrifice that it may not be destroyed but
saved free from the contaminating influence that has stained our fair emblem—the
boasted emblem of liberty; that the Union of the States shall not be broken by
the hands of Treason; the foul assassin of Liberty! O, that the day of glorious
triumph may soon come and with it the right, and stop the horrid evil of war!
Let the demon that actuated it be destroyed! Apropos to the day are these beautiful
lines from Longfellow, which Thompson recited:
* * * Sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
'Tis of the wave and not the rock;
'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee.
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee,—are all with thee!
Have had but little rest for two nights, owing to the storm and
severity of my complaints. No rations since the 2nd. Two hours of terrible
thunder storm. At the Sutler's "Shebang" I purchased a small wheat
biscuit for 35 cents. This is my feast (after two days' fast) for July 4th,
1864.
SOURCE: John Worrell Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a
War Prisoner in Andersonville and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864,
pp. 84-5
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