Wednesday, May 9, 2012

May 9.—A great many wounded men, both Federal and Confederate, were brought in to-day. About twenty-five of ours were shot through mistake. A fine-looking Federal captain is wounded in three or four places. His head and face are tied up, and he can not speak. He has a Bible, on the back of which is printed the Union flag. Some of us were looking at it; one of the ladies remarked that it was still sacred in her eyes. This astonished me, after the suffering which we had seen it the innocent cause of. I said that it was the most hateful thing which I could look at; as every stripe in it recalled to my mind the gashes that 1 had witnessed upon our men. I have conversed with a number of the prisoners; they all express the same opinion as the others, that they dislike Lincoln and the abolitionists as much as we do, but they are fighting for the Union. What a delusion! I am no politician. I must own to ignorance in regard to federal or state rights; but I think I have a faint idea of the meaning of the word “union.” According to Webster and other authorities, it is concord, agreement, and conjunction of mind. We all know how little of that and happiness exists in a forced union of man and wife, where there is neither love nor congeniality of feeling. Can these men really think it when they say it? Are they so blind as to think, even if they succeed, that it can ever bring happiness to them or us? Is it not exactly the same as the case of the marriage state? They must strike out the word union, and have in its stead monarchy or anarchy; one of these, perhaps, would be better. Why, the Czar of Russia lays no higher claim to the right to rule his empire than do these men the right to govern us. Again, supposing they do succeed in subjugating us, have they forgotten that such a thing is not on record, where the Anglo-Saxon race has ever been held in bondage? Why, it would be as much to their disgrace as ours. Are we not the same race? Let them ask themselves what they would do were the case reversed; were we the aggressors, and demanded of them what they now demand of us. I think we all know their answer. It would be that given by the immortal Washington to the haughty monarch of England, when he attempted to make slaves of men who had determined to be free. Grant that we had no lawful right to secede; that I know nothing about, and never was more grieved than when I knew that we had done so; not from any wrong or unlawfulness, but from the fact that, united, we were stronger than we would be when separated; and I also feared the bloodshed which might ensue. If we were sinners in that respect, what were our forefathers when they claimed the right to secede from the British crown? Calling it fighting for the Union, is about as false as the love of the abolitionist for the negro, and we all know what that is. No happiness can exist in union without concord; and there can be no concord where any two people are so diametrically opposed to each other. All this I have repeated to them often, but I might as well have saved myself the trouble, for they are as blind to reason as any bigoted, self-deluded people ever were.

I was introduced to General Hindman, who dined with us to-day. He is still lame from a wound received at the battle of Shiloh. He is a peculiar-looking man; his hair is light and long, floating around his shoulders. I always imagine, when I see a man with his hair so long, that there is a vacancy in his cranium. I believe that it is Shakspeare who says that what a man lacked in brains he had in his hair. As the former is an article that we have much use for, and whose workings are much needed at present among our leading men, I can not but regret that outward indications in this instance were unfavorable. But perhaps this is only my prejudice against foppishness and every thing effeminate in men. General H. may be an exception to this rule, and I trust he is.