Showing posts with label Honor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Honor. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

The Note of Alarm -- Importance of Holding Memphis


(From the Memphis Avalanche, Feb. 26.)

We are gratified to find that the opinions expressed by us with regard to our proper line of defense in the State, are gradually being accepted by all reflecting minds.  Some of our journals have gone astray on the absurd idea that the enemy intended making their strong demonstration against Nashville, strangely concluding that the capital of our State, on a small stream, was of more value to our foe than the command of the great inland sea.

Last November, some of our most intelligent and sagacious citizens regarded Columbus as the point mostly coveted by the enemy, and urged instant and adequate preparations for its defense.

One of our cotemporaries, the Appeal, with more zeal than wisdom, ridiculed the idea of there being any necessity for such preparation as men of sounder judgment and greater sagacity thought advisable, and did much to dampen that spirit which is always essential for any great emergency.

We are glad to see the Appeal returning to a sensible view of this question of defense, and in so nearly our own language as to convince us that it has derived much benefit from the perusal of our late articles upon the importance of defending the Mississippi river, at all hazards.  Our cotemporaries south of us have never committed the blunder of the Appeal, in supposing that our invaders ever intended making anything like a serious demonstration against this valley by any land route nor have they made the worse blunder of discouraging our people from the active preparation in which consists our safety.  The chief object of the enemy was and is too patent for men of sagacity not to see it, and we may rest assured that the country now properly estimates the importance of the question involved, since the Appeal has at last comprehended it.

As we have said again and again, the enemy’s great blow will be struck in his attempt to gain command of this valley.  If Columbus and Memphis should fall he would have uncontrolled sway for two thousand miles of the richest agricultural region in the world, extending from the lakes of the North to the Gulf of the South.  He can move his gunboats and transports at will – not five miles per day, as he now moves his army on land but fifty or one hundred miles per day.  He will garrison towns as he goes with troops enough to keep down all opposition.  He will thus penetrate the heart of our cotton and sugar region, and it will be no ordinary task to drive him from it.  At least it will not be done till cities, towns, villages, hamlets and private dwellings are laid in ashes, and manhood and womanhood be made to drink the cup of bitterness to the dregs!

It is strange, passing strange, that any citizen of this valley could ever have been deluded as to the chief design of the enemy!  And it is strange – we had almost said criminal – that any respectable journal of the South could be found trying to prevent our people from making that preparation for defense called forth by the magnitude of the interests at stake on both sides.

Let Nashville fall, as it probably must but that need not create the panic which now seems really to have seized upon some of our people, a panic which most unfortunately has not been allayed by the adjournment of our executive and Legislature form Nashville to Memphis – a measure deemed by the Executive, Governor Harris, proper and necessary.  We repeat it – let Nashville fall – its value to us is nothing compared with Memphis and this valley!

Our duty is before us, and it is plain.  We must defend the Mississippi river and the Memphis and Charleston railroad!  While we would not pluck our opinion against any commanding officer at Columbus, we are frank to confess that we think Fort Pillow is the point for a stand on the Mississippi, if it be not too late to abandon Columbus.  The latter place is too far from the great artificial line of support and defense – the Memphis and Charleston Railroad – and if Fort Pillow can hold the enemy in check in his advance by water, he will never advance by land.

Be it Columbus or Fort Pillow, one or both must be held, and a point on the Tennessee river (say Hamburg).  With these two river fortifications made impregnable, and others between them, in easy supporting distances of each other, we can defy the advance of the foe for all time to come.  Men, however, are needed for this duty.  It will not do for us to rely upon President Davis, or any other great man, for help, in this hour of trial.

Much is said about President Davis sending us aid.  This may be so.  We trust it is so, but we confess we do not know what point on our Potomac or coast lines, can be safely weakened just now.  Large forces are threatening us in all quarters, and we must rely upon ourselves!  Upon the men from this great valley!  The Legislature will probably soon authorize the Governor to call the militia into active service.  For the sake of honor and manhood, we trust no young unmarried man will suffer himself to be drafted!  He would soon become a bye word – a scoff – a burning shame to his sex and to his State!  Leave that for old and married men but in the name of patriotism let us not see young men parading our streets as militia, when the guns of hundreds of sick soldiers are waiting for them at Columbus.

We invoke the attention of our girls and wives upon this subject, and if young men, in pantaloons, will stay behind desks, counters and molasses barrels, let the girls present them with the garment proper to their peaceable spirits.  Success will make demons of our invaders, and success in the invasion of this valley will be more cheering to them than victory at any other point.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 8, 1862, p. 3