To the Twelve months Volunteers from Alabama in the army of the Potomac.
You will pardon me for addressing you on the subject of re-enlistment when I tell you that I am your comrade, that I have been with you since you entered the field, and that I have at home a family of small children with no other protector than their mother.
When we came to the support of our country, in its struggle for existence, we were jealous of our more fortunate comrades, who were armed and placed at once upon the post of danger.
We were clamorous for active service.
Was this because we had a passion for war which would cease with the first rude encounter, and a thirst for cheaply-earned laurels, which would be satisfied if we won the applause of the people on a single battle-field?
Or did we feel the truth of our condition — that all the treasures of the past and the hopes of the future were to be saved or lost, as we might be true to ourselves and the country, or false to our homes, our families, and to the cause of true Constitutional liberty?
The answer to these questions must determine the course of such men as are guided by principle, and to none other than these can the country look for its defence.
Let us answer them with perfect candor.
If we rushed to the field for the defence of our native land — its soil that has nourished us; its people who are ‘"bone of our bone,"’ and whose hearts are burdened with hopes and prayers for our safety and honor; its Government, Constitution, and laws, which furnish the only security left us for the preservation of life liberty, and property, we must remain in the field until these purposes are accomplished, or else, by our conduct, announce to the world that these things are not worth fighting for, or that we are not the men to fight for them.
If we took up arms in a romantic love of adventure, and intended to lay them down when the real trials of warfare should come upon us, we will serve our country best by leaving the field to men who will endure every hardship which lays in our path to independence.
In this light our actions will be read by our shrewd enemy.
Every man who now recedes from the field will weaken the army more than in proportion to his value as a soldier, and add strength to the enemy in a still greater proportion.
It has been evident, from the time we first measured arms with our oppressors, and they learned to dread the valor of the
Southern patriot- soldier, that the
Yankees have been employing every art of war to avoid further battles, and with their control of the seaboard, and their superior numbers, to keep us harassed with various threatening expeditions, in the hope to annoy, divide, and weaken us. They have taken comfort to themselves, while they have ‘"calculated"’ that we would become restive in camp and behind breastworks, and disgusted with the fatigue duties which the character of their movements would necessarily entail upon us. They have believed that our patriotism was but a bubble; that our zeal was but a freak of passion; that our faith was no more than a whim; that our courage was only a fit of temper; that we would be impatient of toil, and fretful under suffering, and that they could, by superior powers of endurance, win a triumph which they dared not put at stake upon the field of battle.
Shall we fulfill all their base hopes and cold calculations by withdrawing from the struggle at the moment that our greatest sacrifice is demanded, and when such an act would expose our country to almost certain disaster?
What will cause us to lay down the arms we so eagerly raised one year ago, and to abandon the flag we have watched and followed with so much devotion?
Some, I admit, will be called home by the honorable desire to provide for the maintenance and protection of their dependent families.
Those who took the field at the sacrifice of these tender relations at home, evinced the highest possible devotion to their country, and, in some instances, it would be wrong for them to remain in the service, till they have had an opportunity to make provision for their families.
But in such a time and for such a cause as this, every man who can bear arms should count himself a soldier.
No man can, now or hereafter, be called by the endearing name of patriot who remains at home merely because he has more care for his household than he has for his country.--If all the heads of families remain at home while the young men do the fighting, our independence will at last be won, if ever, at the expense of a generation who had but little voice in those grand acts and declarations which we have assembled our armies to defend and make good.
The older men will have the questionable glory of voting themselves independent at the expense of the blood of men who fight but do not vote.
I know and feel as you do, my comrades, that such considerations have often arisen in our minds and touched our hearts, as we have watched the border in the lonely vigils of the outpost, and have toiled in the hot sun and amidst the cold frosts for our country's cause.
But armed with the consciousness that, with all, we did no more than our duty, and upheld in our hearts by the sentiment that we had the approval of the God of truth and justice to sustain us, we have only desired to meet every danger fairly in the face, and have not inquired who else should have been present to share it with us. Such will still be our feelings.
If all that remain at home shall continue to content themselves with ease, comfort, and safety, rather than share with us the toils of camp and the dangers of the field, we shall be content to assign the humble part of gracing a triumph they are unworthy to assist in winning.
Let them enjoy at our hands the independence they have not the will to win with their own.
A fair opportunity has been offered to all classes of freemen at the
South to take up arms in their own defence.
If they are un-
willing to do so, the fault of their conduct must rest at their own doors, and not at ours.
If they leave the field to its, they must not expect to share our laurels, nor to escape the just verdict of coming generations upon their conduct.
If they are willing to remain at home and enrich themselves by speculating on the necessities of the soldiers, it will only be an evil which will cause the country, in the first joy of its triumph, to spurn them from its bosom.
Let us not descend to that level, because, for the moment, it seems to glitter with ill-gotten gain, and to promise dishonorable ease.
We have set out for a nobler destiny; let us never falter or look back-ward on the unfinished furrow.
When we go home, let it be to homes redeemed by our valor from the hands of the vandal oppressor and destroyer.
Let us go as freemen, entitled to a hearty welcome to honored homes, and not as half-whipped seekers after the comforts and pleasures of a society that would be ashamed of us.
Many of you are men of wealth.
Shall the poor man, who stands by your side in the ranks, have it to say of you that you fled to the shades of luxurious homes, while he stood defying all the terrors of climate and of battle in your defence?
Homes that furnish such great attractions as to allure Southern soldiers from the field of battle, and from the paths of honor and of duty, must surely be worth fighting for.
We are trained to the service; we have experienced and overcome our worst enemies — the contagious diseases of camp; we are expert in all the drills and evolutions of the army, and whatever advantage is to be derived from experience we are possessed of.--It is no vain boasting to say, that one trained battalion is worth two of raw recruits of equal courage.
We have faced danger till we court it. To us a life of quietude and safety has become a thing to be deplored.
It is not, therefore, reasonable to expect that recruits can be as serviceable as we are, no matter what may be their courage or daring.
We shall do our country injustice to leave its destiny in the hands of inexperienced men, who will have to stand face to face with well-trained soldiers.
The ranks of the enemy are filled with men
who are enlisted for the war.
If they can find a half million of men to enlist for the war, to oppress and subjugate us, is it an unreasonable appeal to be made to us, to enlist for the war to defend ourselves?
Were we to enlist for life, we should only do what patriots have ever done — stake our all upon the issue for liberty.
And this we must do to secure our independence, or deserve it.
If we would save our fair State from the dishonor of becoming a subjugated province, (a tributary to the whining Yankee fanatic,) from the horrors of a servile war, and from the loss of her sovereign power as a State; if we would preserve sacredly our allegiance to her as a duty we owe to a mother, let us not hesitate to re-enlist for the war. Let us stand by her, and her Confederate sisters, in this struggle, as long as the earth shall furnish us food, and the arched heavens a shelter.
Volunteer.
