|
In Their Own Words Southern Soldiers |
| "There
are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge
that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It
is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it is a greater evil
to the white than to the colored race."
Col. Robert E. Lee, |
| What
has happened to history and the country was ably predicted with uncanny
accuracy by Irish-born Confederate Major General Patrick Cleburne from
his January, 1864, letter which proposed the mass emancipation and
enlistment of Black Southerners into the Confederate Army: "Every man should endeavor to understand the meaning of subjugation before it is too late...It means the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern schoolteachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit objects for derision...The conqueror's policy is to divide the conquered into factions and stir up animosity among them...It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties." |
| "The
rank and file were chiefly farmers and small merchants, comparatively
very few were owners of slaves; but they were all descended from
ancestors whose fortunes and blood had been freely spent in the war
of the revolution; they volunteered in obedience to the call of
their state to resist invasion; they came with a firm determination
to do their full duty."
Capt. Wm. H. S. Burgwyn, 35th Regiment, |
| "We
feel that our cause is just and holy; we protest solemnly in the face of
mankind that we desire peace at any sacrifice save that of honor and
independence; we ask no conquest, no aggrandizement, no concession of
any kind from the States with which we were lately confederated; all we
ask is to be let alone; that those who never held power over us shall
not now attempt our subjugation by arms."
President Jefferson Davis, 29 April, 1861 |
| "We
could have pursued no other course without dishonor. And as sad as the results
have been, if it had all to be done over again, we should be compelled
to act in precisely the same manner."
General Robert E. Lee, C.S.A. |
| "If
I ever disown, repudiate, or apologize for the Cause for which Lee
fought and Jackson died, let the lightning’s of Heaven rend me, and
the scorn of all good men and true women be my portion. Sun, Moon,
Stars, all fall on me when I cease to love the Confederacy. 'Tis the
cause, not the fate of the Cause, that is glorious!"
Maj. R.E. Wilson, CSA |
| Colonel Richard Henry Lee, of "Twenty eight years have passed since the close of our civil war. Time, I trust has healed the wounds of war, but with the revolving years the causes and events of that terrible struggle seem to be forgotten, or if not forgotten, considered as unimportant events of history. And even the history of those events, and the causes that led to that struggle, are not set forth fairly and truthfully. It is stated in books and papers that Southern children read and study that all the blood-shedding and destruction of property of that conflict was because the South rebelled without cause against the best government the world ever saw; that although Southern soldiers were heroes in the field, skillfully massed and led, they and their leaders were rebels and traitors who fought to overthrow the Union, and to preserve human slavery, and that their defeat was necessary for free government and the welfare of the human family. As a Confederate soldier and as a citizen of |
|
"There
was no surrender at The Reverend James Power Smith, last surviving member of General Jackson’s staff, 1907 |
| Captain
Robert Tansil, USMC, (stated in his resignation): "In entering the public service, I took an oath to support the Constitution, which necessarily gives me the right to interpret it. Our institutions, according to my understanding, are founded upon the principle and right of self-government. The States, in forming the Confederacy (in 1783) did not relinquish that right, and I believe that each State has a clear and unquestionable right to secede whenever the people thereof think proper, and the Federal Government has no legal or moral authority to use physical force to keep them in the Union. Entertaining these views, I cannot conscientiously join in a war against any of the States which have already seceded or may hereafter secede, either North or South, for the purpose of coercing them back into the Going South, US Navy Officer Resignations & Dismissals On The Eve of the Civil War, William S. Dudley, Naval Historical Foundation, 1981, pp. 12-23 |
|
Captain Isaac Mayo, writing from his "For
more than half a century it has been the pride of my life to hold office
under the Government of the |
| Commander
Matthew Fontaine Maury, Superintendent of the US Naval Observatory,
(submitted an) initial letter of resignation ...only one sentence in
length. "Sir, I beg leave herewith to resign into your hands my
commission as a Commander in the Navy of the "Our once glorious Going South, US Navy Officer Resignations & Dismissals On The Eve of the Civil War, William S. Dudley, Naval Historical Foundation, 1981, pp. 12-23 |
| Lieutenant
James J. Waddell who was serving on the USS John Adams... "The people of North Carolina having withdrawn their allegiance to the Government of the late Confederacy of the United States...I return to "His Excellency the President of the United States," the commission which appointed me a Lieutenant...In thus separating myself from association which I have cherished for twenty years, I wish it to be understood that no doctrine of the rights of secession, nor wish of the disunion of the States impel me, but simply because my home is the home of my people in the South, and I could not bear arms against them." Going South, US Navy Officer Resignations & Dismissals On The Eve of the Civil War, William S. Dudley, Naval Historical Foundation, 1981, pp. 12-23 |
| One
of the strongest letters of resignation was submitted by Lieutenant
James B. Lewis to Secretary Welles from "The General Government having been converted into a military despotism & when I entered the service (then an honorable one), I was sworn to support the Constitution of the Going South, US Navy Officer Resignations & Dismissals On The Eve of the Civil War, William S. Dudley, Naval Historical Foundation, 1981, pp. 12-23 |
|
"It
is stated in books and papers that Southern children read and study that
all the blood shedding and destruction of property of that conflict was
because the South rebelled without cause against the best government the
world ever saw; that although Southern soldiers were heroes in the
field, skillfully massed and led, they and their leaders were rebels and
traitors who fought to overthrow the Union, and to preserve human
slavery, and that their defeat was necessary for free government and the
welfare of the human family. As a Confederate soldier and as a citizen
of Colonel Richard Henry Lee, C.S.A. |
|
"If centralism is ultimately to prevail; if our
entire system of free Institutions as established by our common ancestors
is to be subverted, and an Empire is to be established in their stead; if
that is to be the last scene of the great tragic drama now being enacted:
then, be assured, that we of the South will be acquitted, not only in our
own consciences, but in the judgment of mankind, of all responsibility for
so terrible a catastrophe, and from all guilt of so great a crime against
humanity." |
|
"Whatever
errors in policy they may have committed, either in inception of the
difficulties or in their subsequent management, the real object of those
who resorted to Secession, as well as those who sustained it, was not to
overthrow the Government of the United States; but to perpetuate the
principles upon which it was founded. The object in quitting the |
|
"As
for the South, it is enough to say that perhaps eighty per cent of her
armies were neither slave-holders, nor had the remotest interest in
the institution. No other proof, however, is needed than the
undeniable fact that at any period of the war from its beginning to
near its close the South could have saved slavery by simply laying
down its arms and returning to the Union." Maj. General John B. Gordon, from his book, Causes of the Civil War |
|
"Nothing
fills me with deeper sadness than to see a Southern man apologizing
for the defense we made of our inheritance. Our cause was so just, so
sacred, that had I known all that has come to pass, had I known what
was to be inflicted upon me, all that my country was to suffer, all
that our posterity was to endure, I would do it all over again.'' President Jefferson Davis, CSA |
|
"You
do not propose to enter into our States, you say, and what do we
complain of? You do not pretend to enter into our States to kill
or destroy our institutions by force. Oh, no... You propose
simply to close us in an embrace that will suffocate us... The day for
adjustment has passed... We desire, we beseech you, let this parting
be in peace... you can never subjugate us; you can never convert
the free sons of the soil into vassals, paying tribute to your
power; and you never, never can degrade them to the level of an
inferior and servile race. Never! Never!" Senator |
|
"I
am more anxious than I can express that my men should be not only good
soldiers of their country, but also good soldiers of the cross." Lt. General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, CSA |
|
"With the exception
of a few honest zealots, the canting hypocritical Yankee cares as little
for our slaves as he does for our draught animals. The war which he has
been making upon slavery for the last 40 years is only an interlude, or
by-play, to help on the main action of the drama, which is Empire; and
it is a curious coincidence that it was commenced about the time the
North began to rob the South by means of its tariffs. When a burglar
designs to enter a dwelling for the purpose of robbery, he provides
himself with the necessary implements. The slavery question was one of
the implements employed to help on the robbery of the South. It
strengthened the Northern party, and enabled them to get their tariffs
through Congress; and when at length, the South, driven to the wall,
turned, as even the crushed worm will turn, it was cunningly perceived
by the Northern men that 'No slavery' would be a popular war-cry, and
hence, they used it." Captain Raphael Semmes, CSN, 5 August 1861 |
|
"If
we were wrong in our contest, then the Declaration of Lt. General Wade Hampton, CSA |