Page:Confederate Cause and Conduct.djvu/86

 64 army, and at all times subject to his orders, was to all intents and purposes an independent command. We believe, that for its numbers and resources, it performed as gallant, faithful and efficient services as any other command in any part of our armies, and that no history of our cause is at all complete, that fails to give some general idea, at the least, of the deeds of devotion and daring performed by this gallant band and its intrepid leader.

We sometimes hear (not often, it is true, but still too often) from those who were once Confederate soldiers themselves, or from the children of Confederates, such expressions as—"We are glad the South did not succeed in her struggle for independence." "We are glad that slavery is abolished," &c.

We wish to express our sincere regret, that any of our people should so far forget themselves as to indulge in any such remarks. In the first place, we think they are utterly uncalled for, and in bad taste. In the second place, to some extent, they reflect upon the Confederate cause, and those who defended that cause; and in the third place, it seems to us, if our own self-respect does not forever seal our lips against such expressions, that the memories of a sacred past, the blood of the thousands and tens of thousands of those who died, the tears, the toils, the wounds, and the innumerable sacrifices of both the living and the dead, that were freely given for the success of that cause, would be an appeal against such expressions, that could not be resisted. If all that is meant by the first of these expressions is, that the speaker means to say, "He is glad that the Union of our Fathers' is preserved," then we can unite with him in rejoicing at this, if this is the "Union of our Fathers," as to which we have the gravest doubts. But be this as it may, we have never believed that the subjugation of the South or the success of the North, was either necessary, or the best way to preserve and perpetuate the "Union of our Fathers."

On the secession of Mississippi, her Convention sent a Commissioner from that State to Maryland, who, at that time, it may be