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“Yes, sir, they are” --(Isaiah XLIII: 5, 6.) “But you should not have read them.”
Mr. Smith said in reply: “They have no reference to political questions-and do you intend to limit the reading of God's word?”
“Yes, sir!”
“You will then have your hands full before you get to the Gulf of Mexico.”
The captain then said: “Take the oath, sir, and you may go.”
“No, sir,” Mr. Smith replied, “I will not.”
“Then we will send you to Washington.”
“Very well, sir.”
“Appear before me tomorrow morning prepared to go.”
Mr. Smith appeared; but the captain and his counsellors, it appears, had thought better of the matter.
The winter of 1862 was ushered by the repulse of the
Federals at
Fredericksburg, and the year was closed by the
battle of Murfreesboro and the frightful slaughter at
Stone river.
The movement against
Fredericksburg was the fourth attempt to reach
Richmond.
Generals McDowell,
McClellan, and
Pope had failed, and now
Burnside was hurled back across the
Rappahannock with his shattered and beaten army.
The leaders and the men who successively defeated four great armies of the
North were worthy of the eulogies bestowed by impartial spectators of the war.
Mr. Lawley, an English gentleman, who was in the
South at this time, wrote to the London
Times:
It is a strange thing to look at these men, so ragged, slovenly, sleeveless, without a superfluous ounce of flesh upon their bones, with wild, matted hair, in mendicants' rags, and to think when the battle flag goes to the front how they can and do fight.
“There is only one attitude in which I never should be ashamed of your seeing my men, and that is when they are fighting.”
These were General Lee's words to me the first time I ever saw him. They have been confirmed by every other distinguished officer in the Confederacy.
There are triumphs of daring which these poor, ragged men have attempted, and attempted successfully, in this war, which have never been
