Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/472

 466 Southern Historical Society Papers.

Two Addresses of President Davis to the Soldiers of the Confederacy.

[These ringing appeals of our Chief Magistrate to our soldiers were issued, the first in August, 1863, and the second in February, 1S64. They are worth preserving as indicating " the situation " at those imoortant periods of our history.]

ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT TO THE SOLDIERS OF THE CONFEDE- RATE STATES.

After more than two years of a warfare scarcely equalled in the number, magnitude and fearful carnage of its battles ; a warfare in which your courage and fortitude have illustrated your country, and attracted not only gratitude at home, but admiration abroad, your enemies continue a struggle in which our final triumph must be in- evitable. Unduly elated with their recent successes, they imagine that temporary reverses can quell your spirit or shake your determination, and they are now gathering heavy masses for a general invasion, in the vain hope that by a desperate effort success may at length be reached.

You know too well, my countrymen, what they mean by success. Their malignant rage aims at nothing less than the extermination of yourselves, your wives and children. They seek to destroy what they cannot plunder. They propose, as the spoils of victory, that your homes shall be partitioned among the wretches whose atrocious cruelties have stamped infamy on their Government. They design to incite servile insurrection and light the fires of incendiarism when- ever they can reach your homes, and they debauch the inferior race, hitherto docile and contented, by promising indulgence of the vilest passions as the price of treachery. Conscious of their inability to prevail by legitimate warfare, not daring to make peace lest they should be hurled from their seats of power, the men who now rule in Washington refuse even to confer on the subject of putting an end to outrages which disgrace our age, or to listen to a suggestion for con- ducting the war according to the usages of civilization.

Fellow-citizens, no alternative is left you but victory, or subjuga- tion, slavery and the utter ruin of yourselves, your families and your country. The victory is within your reach. You need but stretch forth your hands to grasp it. For this and all that is neces- sary is that those who are called to the field by every motive that can move the human heart, should promptly repair to the post of duty,