} C:^>**^Vv • 1i f L-5'ifi//7?£>V/^ /, LINCOLN ROOM UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY 973. 7 Se9c cop. 2 Richard Barksdale Harwell John P Micl^olson / ex/- THE CONDITION OF THE SOUTH AND THE DUTY OF THE NORTH. AS SET FORTH IX A LETTER FROM GEN. T. SEYMOUR, LATELY RELEASED FROM "UNDER FIRE," AT CHARLESTON. NEW YORK ] 8 6 4.-—^ The followiug deeply interesting letter is from the pen of Gen. Truman Seymour, lately released from " under fire " at Charles- ton, S. C. As an old West Point officer, with Gen. Anderson at Sumter, and stationed many years at the South, he knows the Southern people well. He is a brave, true soldier, devoted to the Union, and although at the time of the unfortunate battle in Florida he was accused of lukewarmness by those ignorant of his character, he has proved, by his actions on many a battle-field, as well as by his plucky talk to the rebels at Gordonsville, when captured in May last, that he was every inch loyal to the old flag: "WrLLIAMSTOWN, MASS., August 15th, 1864. My Dear Sir — You ask for my impressions of the present condi- tion of the Southern Confederacy, and you shall have them. For the benefit of our cause, I wish they might be impressed upon every soul in the land, that the confi- dence begotten of my three months' observations in the interior of the South might be shared by every man who -- ^ has the least connection with the responsibilities of this^ siivjj^ struggle. And I am sure that these opinions are not v:;;^ peculiar to myself. Every one of the fifty officers just \^ exchanged will express the same — every one of our men, ° whether from the jails of Charleston or the pens of Ma- con and Audersonville, will confidently tell the same Btory. The rebel cause is fast failing from exhaustion. Their two grand armies Lave been reinforced this summer from the last resources of the South. From every corner of the land, every old man and every bey capable of bear ing a rifle, has been impressed, willingly or unwillingly, and hurried to the front. Lee's army was the first so strengthened — it was at the expense of Hood's. Gov- ernor Brown told the trath with a plainness that was very bitter, but it was none the less the truth. Let me extract a few prominent statements from his proclama- tion of July 9th, addressed to the " Reserved Militia of Georgia :'' — *' A late correspondence with the President of the Con- federate States satisfies my mind that Georgia is to be left to her own resources to supply the reinforcements to General Johnson's army, which are indispensable to the protection of Atlanta, and to prevent the State from being overrun by the overwhelming numbers now under command of the Federal general upon our soil. *' But there is need of further reinforcements, as will be seen by the accompanying letter of General Johnston; * * * * and it becomes my duty to call forth every raan in the State able to bear arms, as fast as they can be armed, to aid in the defence of our homes, our altars, and the graves of our ancestors. " IS. the Confederate government will not send the large cavalry force (now engaged in raiding and in repelling raids) to destroy the long line of railroads over which General Sherman brings his supplies from Xashville, and thus compel him to retreat, v/ith the loss of most of his army, the people of Georgia, who have already been drawn upon more heavily in proportion to population than those of any other State in the Confederacy^ must, at all hazzards and at any sacrifice, rush to the front. " If General Johnston's army is destroyed, the Gulf States are thrown open to the enemy, and we are ruined." There must indeed have been desperate weakness when Georgia, and the Southern cause with it, were so neglected, that Lee's army might be made equal to the task of hold- ing Grant to the Potomac or the James, and the people of the South ire intelli2rent enougrh to understand and to appreciate the fact — and they have lost heart accordingly. The following is from a letter written by one rebel to another, that accidentally fell into the hands of one of ray fellow-prisoners, and for the authenticity of which I vouch : — " Very few j^ersons are preparing to obey the late call of the governor. His summons will meet with no re- sponse here. The people are soul-sick and heartily tired of this hateful, hopeless strife. They would end it if they could, but our would-be rulers will take good care that no opportunity be given the people to vote against it. By lies, by fraud and by chicanery this revolution was in augurated — by force, by tyranny and the suppression of VLm truth it is sustained. It is nearly time that it should end — and of sheer depletion it must end before long. "\Ve have had enough of want and of woe — enough of cruelty and carnage — enough of cripples and corpses. There is an abundance of bereaved parents, weeping widows, and orphaned children in the land : if we can, let us not increase the number. The men who, to ag- grandize themselves, or to gratify their own political ambition, brought this cruel war upon a peaceful and prosperous country, will have to render a fearful account of their misdeeds to a wronged, robbed, and outraged people. Earth has no punishment sufficiently meet for their villany here, and hell will hardly be hot enough to scathe them hereafter !" There is certainly no small proportion of the Southern people (despite the lying declarations of their journals — as we had good occasion to learn) that not only favors the progress of our arms, but that daily prays that this exterminating war may very soon be brought to a finahty by our complete and perfect success. They have had too much of despotism — not enough of the triumph promised them. Many intelligent Southern gentlemen do, indeed, express strong hopes of their ultimate inde- pendence, but such hope is not shared by the masses. Disappointed from the first in not having been acknow- ledged by foreign powers — more bitterly disappointed in their general expectation that Northern cowardice or dis wm 5 sension would secure their ends — but a single chance remains, and that is in the result of our next election for president. If a Democrat succeeds to Mr. Lincoln, they profess to feel sure of negotiation, and their Confederacy. They believe a Democrat will be elected. In Mr. Lin- coln's re-election they see only subjugation, annihilation — for the war must then continue, and continuance is their failure and ruin. In military affairs it is an excellent rule never to do what the enemy desires : is it not-equally true in politics ? Certain it is that the only remaining hope of the South lies in Mr. Lincoln's defeat. Xow I am not enough of a politician to know whether the election of a Democrat can result as favorably to the South as it anticipates. The wish alone may be the pa- rent of their belief. But I assured all who expressed that belief, that the North, as a mass, is as united as the South ; that no Democrat could be elected on a peace platform ; and that any president who would inaugurate any measure leading to peace on the basis of Southern independence would be promptly hung, by loyal acclama- tion, to the lamp-post in fiont of his own presidential mansion. However that may be, if we are but true to ourselves there can be but one result. "VThat we now need is men — only men. Xot substitutes or hirelings, who go forth for any motive but the country's good, and produce but little effect beyond depreciating our armies — but men — such as really constitute the state, and boast of being freemen, and llie sons of freemen. Yet if these fail to sup- port their country's cause in her hour of peril they are unworthy of continuing freemen, and should blush ever to exercise a freeman's privileges. But if bounties must be paid, let it be in Southern land — not in Northern gold — and armies of emigrants, whose sons may aspire to even the rule of the nation, will cross the seas to win the broad acres that disloyalty has forfeited to the state. To ever^^ intelligrent soldier who has fousfht throusrh all these indecisive campaigns, on almost numberless in- decisive fields, the question constantly arises, with touch- ing force, why we do not overwhelm our enemies? Tens of thousands of lives are lost because our array of strength is so disproportionately less than that against which we battle. Everywhere we meet on nearly equal terms, where we might well have four to one. The cost to us in blood and treasure, of a prolonged war, can hardly be foreseen : the economy is infinite of such an effort as the glorious Xorth should put forth. The South will fight as long as the struggle is equal — it will submit to such preponderance as we should show on every field. Glance at the summer's campaigns. If Sherman had but 50,000 or To, 000 more men, the South would be lost, because Hood would be annihilated. If Meade had moved in the spring with reserves of 75,000 to 100,000 men, Lee Avould have been hoj^elessly crushed. Even at this moment, a third column of 40,000 to 50,000, rightly moved, would give unopposed blows to the Confederacy, from which she could never rise. What folly, then, to struggle on in this way, when we can send to the field five times the force already there. What weakness, to think we cannot conquer the South. Behind the James, only boys and old men are to be seen, while here men buy and sell as in the olden days of quiet, and resfiments of able-bodied citizens crowd the streets of our cities. There is but one course consistent with Northern safety or honor. Let the people awake to a sense of their dignity and strength, and a few months of comparatively trifling exertion, of such effort as alone is worthy of the great North, and the rebellion will crumble before us. Fill this draft promptly and willingly, with good and true men : send a few spare thousands over rather than under the call, and the summer sun of 1865 will shine upon a regenerated land. There are some who speak of peace ! — Of all Yankees^ the Southron most scorns those who do not fight — but are glad enough to employ them, as they do their slaves, to perform their dirty W4)rk. Peace for the South will be sweet indeed; for us, except through Southern subju- gation, but anarchy and war forever. The Pacific, the Western, the Eastern States, would at once fall asunder. 8 The South would be dominant ; and the people of the North would deserve to be driven afield, under negro overseers, to hoe corn and cotton for Southern masters. But no faint-hearted or short-sighted policy can set aside the eternal decree of the Almighty, who has planted no lines of division between the Atlantic and the western deserts — between the great lakes and the Gulf of Mexi- co, — that signify His will that we should be separated: and unless so separated, peace is a delusion, and its advo- cacy a treason against the wisest and holiest interests of our country. It has been with a trust that renewed hope and vigor might be given, where vigor and hope are needful, that I have written, and you have my consent to using this as you please. And I am, very truly, yours, T. Seymour, Brig.-Gen. U. S. Vols. Mr. W. E. D., Jr., New York. THE DUTY OF THE HOUR. "Wf suppose that every man and woman in the land knows that the armies of the Union which are actively engaged in their heroic eflforts to crush out this Southern rebellion, are greatly in need of reinforce- ment. Lieut.-Gren. Grant himself has but recently declared that '■'if he had now hut a hundred thousand fresh men he could, in fifty days, do up all the fighting that needs to be done during the war.'' " This," wrote our Washington correspondent the other day, " is no shallow hearsay ; it is the authentic declaration of the high name given ; and the senti- ment is affirmed by every mihtary man I have lately met." Think of this, ye who long for p?ace ! Think of it. ye who desire a restored Union ! Think of it, brave young men, and all who are patriots or lovers of American liberty ! And do not only think of it, but take such action as the thought and the circumstances require. If this generation are worthy of the glorious Union which their fathers formed, and the freedom which their fathers fought for, let them now, in the moment of the Union's greatest need, in the day of Freedom's peril, prove it by the course they adopt. Grakt says '"but a hundred thousand fresh men." What is this to tlie twenty -two millions of the North ? To this gre.at. populous Em- pire State of New York it is less than twenty tliousand men. Had we the right spirit, this city alone ouglit to put thnt force in the field in a week. In fifty days we may have peace. This is no flippant prophecy, but it is the asseveration of a man wlio, more than any other, knows the whole mihtary power of this rebellion — who has fouglit its gre.-itest armies in Tennessee, in Mississippi, in Georgia, and in Virginia — who has confronted its greatest leaders, assailed and captured its strongest positions, and routed on a dozen fields its largest armies " In fifty days " — before the mellow sun of the coming October passes away, before the frosts of Winter are upon us, he "can do up all the fighting that needs to be done during the war" — if we will but give bim the reinforcements which we can so easily furnish. Will the country ro- ppond ? Will you do your duty in the crisis. patriotic read r? H.E.H. DUPL. ■J^ *»w /", ^i-v. ••» 4» . «i>*^ .^■^. ••t.J '^•r ,< • •