Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 02.djvu/31

Rh conclusion, let me quote from the above-mentioned report of General Grant the following passage:

"General Lee's great influence throughout the whole South caused his example to be followed, and to-day the result is that the armies lately under his leadership are at their homes, desiring peace and quiet, and their arms are in the hands of our ordnance officers."

Thus wrote the General-in-Chief of the United States armies—the now President of the United States—on the 22d of July, 1865. Yet we have not had peace. The heel of the military power, supplanting all civil government, is scarce yet withdrawn from our necks, and our venerated and beloved commander has gone down to his grave with his great heart broken by the sufferings of his people—sufferings which he found himself powerless to relieve. We have just witnessed the elections throughout several States of this "Free Republic," some of which are called "loyal States," superintended by armed agents of the United States Government, backed by United States troops, for the purpose of perpetuating the power of the ruling faction, through the instrumentality of the ballot in the hands of an ignorant and inferior race. This thing has been tamely submitted to by the descendants of men who rushed to arms to resist the stamp act, the tea tax, and the quartering acts of the British Parliament. We look on in amazement at the spectacle presented, conscious that, come what may, we have. done our duty in endeavoring to maintain the principles of our fathers, and aware of the fact that we are now powerless and helpless—our only earthly consolation being that derived from a sense of duty performed and the conviction that the world will yet learn to do justice to our acts and motives.

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Late Lieutenant-General Confederate Army. , November 19th, 1870.