Sunday, November 16, 2014

November 17, 1864: "The great danger . . . has come upon the country."



NOVEMBER 17, 1864:      

Colonel (later General) T.W. Brevard writes to his father, General T.W. Brevard regarding the re-election of Abraham Lincoln. His letter reads in part:

  
The re-election of Lincoln gives us the certainty of four more years of war . . . made constantly necessary by . . . bloody and wasting campaigns . . . [and by the] European Governments [who do not] depart from the[ir] non-intervention policy . . . The Northern people are completely in subjection to the Washington Government. No ruler is more absolute than Lincoln . . .  We . . . long ago ceased to hope for foreign intervention. There is no earthly chance for terms of agreement . . . for Lincoln makes it a condition precedent . . . that we shall lay down our arms and abolish slavery. We stand therefore at the expiration of nearly four years of bloodshed in the face of a powerful military despotism armed with every possible warlike appointment and equipment, determined . . . upon our subjugation, and we have no choice but to fight for it to the bitter end. Long ago I said . . .  that the great danger . . . in our struggle was the possible depression and arrest of fortitude on the part of our people . . . in the event of Lincoln’s re-election . . . That test has come upon the country and may God grant the people of the South strength and grace to . . . meet the issue honestly and defiantly. 



Thomas Jefferson Moses is a Union soldier engaged in Sherman’s March to the Sea. In a quick diary entry he writes:

To day we marched 20 miles. We come through Jackson a prety nice town. To day our regiment was train guard. We marched very hard to day.



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