Sunday, November 29.—A very cold day. Mr. Moore, who is now our chaplain, had service in the court-house.
The news to-day from the army is a little more cheering, but it is almost impossible to hear any thing definite. We had a few wounded brought in last night.
I see by the papers that the Georgia legislature has appropriated a large sum of money for the relief of the soldiers’ families in their state. I do hope that all the other states will imitate them. Men can not be expected to fight when their wives and children are starving.
I see by the same papers that Lincoln is out with another call for three hundred thousand more troops. Many are confident he will not get them, but that is one of the phantoms we have been chasing and placing our hopes upon ever since the war, and time after time it has vanished like the “baseless fabric of a dream,” which it is. When Lincoln has failed to get men from his own land, he has used every means at his command to recruit in foreign countries. And, notwithstanding Lord Lyons’s punctilio about international law, thousands of men have been recruited on British soil.
They are men deluded in every possible way.
Lincoln may get men to fill his last call, and yet, if the South is only true to herself, she can never be conquered. “The battle is not always to the strong.”
I look around me sometimes, and sec so many good, intelligent men, and think what a sad thing it would be were we subjugated. I believe such a thing is a moral impossibility, and can never happen.
I firmly believe there is not a state in the Confederacy that will not be scourged by the invader, for the sins we have committed in our prosperity, forgetting the Most High, who is the giver of all good. True, the enemy have sinned as well as we, which sins they will have to answer for, if not to-day, some other.
How often do we see, in reading the history of the Jews, that God used as instruments the most wicked nations on earth with which to scourge them, when they were guilty of the same sins we are.
The history of that nation was written mainly for an example for us to profit by. Individuals and nations will be judged according to the light given them.
Another of our phantoms—foreign intervention—I am in hopes has vanished forever from the minds of our people. I have often thought, if we could have it, the war would cease; for, boastful as the Federals are, I do not think they would go to war with foreign powers.
Many have praised France for her goodwill toward us, but to save my life I can not see what she has done.
I believe now, more than ever, we ought to judge people by their acts and not their words. The latter cost nothing. They will not put money in our coffers, nor aid us in any way; and, as Pope says,
“One self-approving hour whole years outweighs
Of stupid starers, and of loud huzzas.”
The consciousness of having done our duty will be better than all the flattery they could give us.
When the war commenced, my main hope for aid was from Great Britain, as I had always thought of her as the defender of the oppressed, but like many others of my hopes, this one has also fallen.
I have heard many say that she rejoices at this struggle, as she has always been jealous of the growing power of the United States, and she will wait until we wear each other out before giving us any aid. I have always rejected this cruel, heartless accusation with indignation, for I can not bring myself to think that the people whom I have loved to look up to for every thing that was magnanimous and great, could rejoice at the misery of any nation, much less that of its descendants. If such could be the case, I think, with nations as with individuals, that for every dishonest and unprincipled motive, no matter how seemingly clothed with justice? the act may be, an account must be given; and if Great Britain is base enough to keep back from giving us aid, from the motive imputed to her, her day of reckoning will surely come. I have thought that she did not give us aid because she could not consistently be an abettor of slavery. But I have given up that notion, for I know that the Britons are endowed with judgment enough to see through the mask worn by the abolitionists, and to know that we, not they, are the true friend of the negro.
Mr. Lindsay, M. P., made a speech lately in Middlesex, England, in which he says he has conversed with Dr. Livingston on the condition of the negro in Africa, and Dr. L. had told him it was not possible to conceive any thing like the degradation of the race in that country.
If people would only think, they would see, even taking Mrs. Stowe’s book for their standard, that there are no negroes on the face of the earth as happy as those who are slaves in this country. Mrs. S. drew a true picture when she drew Uncle Tom, for we have many such among us; and from all we can learn such characters are rare in the North and other countries where the negro race is. As for Mr. Legree, few southerners deny having such among us. I know of one, a Scotchman. Ho whipped a negro child to death; was tried and put in the penitentiary. Hanging would have been too good for such a man, so all said. The wife of this wretch died of a broken heart, from ill treatment. The latter crime, I believe, is not rare among the “unco guid” and their neighbors, if we are to believe their own papers. I never take up one but I read about some half dozen men being tried for wife-beating. Such a thing is rarely heard of here. I know of a few more Legrees. Two are New Englanders and one a Dutchman. They beat their negroes, but they are despised by all who know them. They are no worse than Squeers, who, we are told, is a true representative of many a man in England. If we are to judge of Britons from Squeers, and others I have spoken about, we may all pray to be delivered from coming in contact with such a race of wife-beaters and monsters as they must be. But we all know that atrocities committed by wicked men are no standard by which to judge the nation to whom they belong.
I have often alleged as a reason for foreigners and northerners ill-treating negroes so much more than the southerners, that the negro, like his master, is not over-fond of work. The foreigner is accustomed to have white servants work from daylight till dark, and many of them after dark; they expect the same work from the negro, but all in vain, for the darky has no such ideas of life—eat, sleep, and no work, is his motto. These people, not understanding the character of the negro, lose patience with him, and try by whipping to get the same amount of work from them as they have been in the habit of getting from white servants. Many a time, while we have listened to the tales about the work done by white servants in Scotland, we have said, who could live in a country where such things are done, and where there was such slavery. The southern people do not respect any one who overworks his servants. That they have not done their whole duty by the slaves they do not deny. They should have laws protecting them from these monsters; but, as I have said before, they are not to blame. And as soon as we have peace, I am told that the first thing our people will do is to improve their condition.
But I have wandered from the subject of recognition. I feel confident that it is not on account of slavery that Britain has kept aloof from us. The why and the wherefore is yet to be known. She has borne insult after insult from the Federals, till I have heard some of her people on “this side of the water” indignantly cry out:
“My country! colors not thy once proud brow
At this affront! Hast thou not fleets enow,
With Glory’s streamer, lofty as the lark,
Gay fluttering o’er each thundering bark,
To warm the insulter’s seas with barbarous blood.”
This M. P., Mr. Lindsay, makes an acknowledgment in his speech, which proves that that immaculate British government has not only permitted recruiting, but he says that the very guns and ammunition now used in bombarding Charleston came from England. What is Lord Lyons about? Perhaps that is not a breach of the law, only bending it. Well, we have certainly enough to contend with—foes within and the whole world without.
“If but a doubt hung o’er the fields of fray,
Or trivial rapine stopped the world’s highway,
Were this some common strife of states embroiled,
Britannia on the spoiler and the spoiled
Might calmly look, and, asking time to breathe,
Still honorably wear her olive wreath;
But this is darkness combating with light;
Earth’s adverse principles for empire fight.”
I hope that our people will not be deluded any longer, but look to themselves, having a full trust in God, and in the justice of our cause.
