J. L. Underwood

“ Where the young girls who stood by the wayside to feed the hungry and quench the thirst of the men on their long and weary marches? Where the women who with tireless energy ministered night and day to the sick and wounded and spoke words of hope to the dying? Where those who stood at the threshold of desolate homes to welcome with smiles and loving caresses their uncrowned heroes, and who by their courage and patient endurance, amidst want and poverty, saved from despair and even suicide the men by whose heroic efforts a new and greater South has arisen from the ashes of the old? ”

“ No man can justly record the truth of the Confederate war who has not risen above the passions and prejudices incident to such terrible convulsions. No man with malice to the North can write justly of the South. No man can appreciate our great Jefferson Davis, who can see nothing good in President Lincoln. No man can describe the glory of Lee and Jackson, who shuts his eyes to the soldiership of McClellan, the patriotism of Hancock, the generosity of Grant, and the knighthood of McPherson and Custer. ”

“ Instead of that, witness the miracle of the slave in loyalty closing the fetters about his own limbs, maintaining the families of those who fought against his freedom, and at night on the far-off battlefield searching among the carnage for his young master, that he might lift the dying head to his humble breast and with rough hands wipe the blood away and bend his tender ear to catch the last words for the old ones at home, wrestling meanwhile in agony and love, that in vicarious sacrifice he would have laid down his life in his master’s stead. ”

“ Lord, we could have seceded from these savage Southern States long ago and got rid of any connection with slavery, for we believed in secession until just now. But, Lord, if we let the South go, as Mr. Lincoln says, where will we get our revenues? We thank Thee too that we have forgotten that those Southerners can’t get rid of the negroes without kicking them into the Gulf of Mexico. Lord, we thank Thee that we can see nothing but our own righteousness. We have tried to reform those wicked Southerners and make them good like ourselves, but we couldn’t. ”

“ They never mounted platforms to speak nor pulpits to preach, and yet their influence and inspiration gave Southern pulpits and platforms a world-wide fame. Their highest ambition was to be president of home. They were Southern women everywhere, at home and abroad, in church and on the streets, in parlor and kitchen, when they rode, when they walked. Gentle, but brave; modest, but independent. Seeking no recognition, the true Southern woman found it already won by her worth; courting no attention, at every turn it met her, to do willing homage to her native grace and genuine womanhood. ”

“ But amid flame, carnage, death, and lamentations, though their land was reddening with blood, and 32 their beloved ones were falling like leaves in autumn, they stood, like heroines, firm, steadfast, and constant.
Oh! women of the Confederacy, your fame is deathless; you need not monument nor sculptured stone to perpetuate it. Young maidens, gather at the feet of some Confederate matron in some reminiscent hour, and listen to her story of those days, now more than thirty years past, and hear how God gave her courage, fortitude, and strength to bear her privations, and bereavements, and live. ”

“ Would that I could do more than thank the dear friends who made my life for four years so happy and contented; who never made me feel by word or act that my self-imposed occupation was otherwise than one which would ennoble any woman. If ever any aid was given through my own exertions, or any labor rendered effective by me for the good of the South—if any sick soldier ever benefited by my happy face or pleasant smiles at his bedside, or death was ever soothed by gentle words of hope and tender care—such results were only owing to the cheering encouragement I received from them. ”

“ A beautiful boy, too young to fight and die, and a member of an Alabama regiment, was dying from a terrible wound a few feet off. His mother had been telegraphed for at his request. In the wild delirium of his dying moments he had been steadily calling for her, “Oh, mother, come; do come quickly!” Then, under the influence of opiates given to smooth his entrance into eternal rest, he dozed and slumbered. The thunders of the great guns along the lines of the immortal Lee roused him up. Just then his dying eyes rested upon one of the lovely matrons of Richmond advancing toward him. ”

“ Your office is not to lead, like a brave man and soldier, your men to fight in the ranks of war, but your work has been to separate yourself from all danger, and with your incendiary band steal unaware upon helpless women and children, to insult and destroy. Two fair homes did you yesterday ruthlessly lay in ashes, giving not a moment’s warning to the startled inmates of your wicked purpose; turning mothers and children out of doors, you are execrated by your own men for the cruel work you give them to do. ”

“ From March, 1861, to March, 1885, any true Southern man in the national capital found himself a stranger in a strange land, and was looked upon as a political Pariah by those in power,—an intruder even in the house of his fathers. Every government office all over the land in the hands of the Northern States. What a travesty of union! The North a dictator, the South a satrapy. ”

“ The women of the South sent forth their sons, directing them to return with victory; to return with wounds disabling them from further service, or never to return at all. All they had was flung into the contest—beauty, grace, passion, ornaments. The exquisite frivolities so dear to the sex were cast aside; their songs, if they had any heart to sing, were patriotic; their trinkets were flung into the crucible; the carpets from their floors were portioned out as blankets to the suffering soldiers of their cause; women bred to every refinement of luxury wore homespuns made by their own hands. ”

“ Who does not recall the sleepless and patient vigilance, the heroic fortitude and untiring tenderness of the fair Southern women in providing articles of comfort and usefulness for their kindred in the field, preparing with their dainty hands from their scanty supplies, food and clothing for the Confederate soldiers; establishing homes and hospitals for the sick and disabled, and ministering to their wants with a gentle kindness that alleviated so much suffering and pain? ”

“ There are three pieces of fiction that have had a long and popular run in what may be described in a large way as the North American mind. One is that the stage representations of negro characters are true to life; another is that the poor white trash of the South are utterly worthless and thriftless; and the other is that the white woman of the South lived in a state of idleness during the days of slavery, swinging and languishing in hammocks while bevies of pickaninnies cooled the tropical air with long-handled fans made of peacock tails. ”

“ The Northern lieutenant not only took off his cap and bowed in reverence when the Confederate chaplain prayed, but with his own hands assisted in all the details of every burial. So let the North and the South together bury the dead animosities of the past, take the corpse of bitter falsehood, the prolific mother of prejudice and hatred, bind it with the cords of patriotism and sink it into the ocean of oblivion. But publish the truth. The truth lives and ought to live. Truth never does harm ”

“ For forty years the South has made not merely a courageous, but at times a desperate struggle, as she has striven for moral and material well-being. Her success has been extraordinary, and all citizens of our common country should feel joy and pride in it; for any great deed done, or any fine qualities shown, by one group of Americans, of necessity reflects credit upon all Americans. Only a heroic people could have battled successfully against the conditions with which the people of the South found themselves face to face at the end of the civil war. ”

“ The big mansion was turned into a factory for supplying Confederate needs. Mrs. Johnstone and her fair daughter, Helen, became the head of a busy body of working women, who gave of their time and talent for the South. All day was heard the whir of spinning-wheels, the slipping of the shuttles in the looms; all day busy fingers carded, wove, spun and sewed, that the soldiers might be made more comfortable. One company of soldiers was equipped throughout the war solely at Miss Johnstone’s expense, while she and her mother furnished clothing to two hundred others. ”

“ Thirty-two years have passed since then, and strange it may seem that a boy soldier, that few thought could live, is writing this reminiscence of those two days of carnage. Never shall I forget the morning of that fateful 14th of May, when at early dawn the signal guns told us in tones of thunder that both armies were ready for the work of death. Bright rose the sun, tipping mountain peak with blooming rays of silver and bathing valley and woodland in a flood of golden light, a scene 238 never to be witnessed again by hundreds of the boys who wore the blue and the gray. ”

“ War put the South under the rule of soldiers; reconstruction put us under the heel of the rapacious carpet-bagger and negro plunderers. War crushed some of our people. Vindictive legislation crushed all our people. War made the South an Aceldama; reconstruction made it a Gehenna. Grant held back the red right hands of Stanton and Holt from the throats of Lee and his paroled soldiers: alas, Lincoln was dead, and his patriotic arm was not there to hold back Thad Stevens and his revolutionary congress from our prostrate citizens. ”

“ The suffering of the men from privations and hunger, from the wounds of battle and the sickness of camp, were 25 mild inconveniences when compared with the anguish of soul suffered by the women at home, and yet they bore it all with surpassing heroism. No pen can ever do justice to their imperishable renown. The shot and shell of invading armies could not intimidate, nor could the rude presence of a sometimes ruthless enemy deter their dauntless souls. To my mind there has been nothing in history or past experiences comparable to their fortitude, courage, and devotion. ”

“ The American Union is an imposture—a covenant with death and an agreement with hell. We are for its overthrow! Up with the flag of disunion, that we may have a free and glorious republic of our own.”—Wm. Lloyd Garrison.
“I look forward to the day when there shall be a servile insurrection in the South; when the black man, armed with British bayonets, and led on by British officers, shall assert his freedom and wage a war of extermination against his master. ”

“ The future of the broken, war-swept South seemed beyond hope, and if her sons and daughters had been of weaker fiber there would have been in very truth no hope. But the men and the sons of the men who had faced with unfaltering front every alternation of good and evil fortune from Manassas to Appomattox, and the women, their wives and mothers, whose courage and endurance had reached an even higher heroic level—these men and these women set themselves undauntedly to the great task before them. ”

“ I know that it were needless to say that the character and conduct of the women of the South during our late war stand out equally with those of any age or country, and deserve to go down in history as affording an example of fortitude, bravery, affection and patriotism that it is impossible to surpass: and I am further proud to say that the women of the Northern States exhibited in that war a devotion and patriotism to their country and its cause deserving of all praise. ”

“ The trials of the war were nothing compared to the ordeal through which Southern women have just passed. In the wreck of the South brought on by Northern ballots and bayonets, the culminating damage is the demoralization of the generation of negroes now recently grown. In the face of the worse than Gorgan horrors our women have borne themselves with a courage, a patience, and fortitude that are sublime. But let friends of the negro and friends of our women hope. Thank God, the crime is on the decrease. White men somehow will protect such women as God has given our sunny land. ”

“ Oh, it makes the blood run cold to think of the relentless malignity of the fanaticism of those days. No parlors nor churches too sacred for bitter onslaught on Southern people; no epithets too vile; no slanders too black; no curses too deadly to be hurled at Southern men and women. But war,—yes, blood-red war was really, and almost formally declared by the Northern endorsement of Henry Ward Beecher’s “Sharpe’s rifles” crusade against Southern settlers in Kansas; and the war of 1861 was actually begun by John Brown’s murderous raid at Harper’s Ferry in Virginia in 1859. ”

“ Every mother’s son of you knew that if you didn’t keep exact step to the music of Dixie and the Bonny Blue Flag, if you did not tread the very front line of battle when the contest was on, knew in short that if you returned home in aught but soldierly honor, that the very fires of hell would not scorch and consume your unshriven souls as you would be scorched and consumed by the scorn and contempt of your womanhood. ”

“ As nurses for the sick, as encouragers and providers for the combatants, as angels of charity and mercy, adopting as their own all children made orphans in defence of their homes, as patient and beautiful household deities, accepting every sacrifice with unconcern, and lightening the burdens of war by every art, blandishment, and labor proper to their sphere, the dear women of his people deserved to take rank with the highest heroines of the grandest days of the greatest centuries. ”

“ Few were the hearts in any part of the land that did not thrill at the thought that those who were fighting for us were in want of food. From a humble cabin on the hill-side, where the old brown spinning-wheel and the rude loom were the only breastworks against starvation, 174 up through all grades of life, there were none who did not feel a deep and tender, almost heartbreaking solicitude for our noble soldiers. For them the last barrel of flour was divided, the last luxury in homes that had once abounded cheerfully surrendered. ”

“ Your name will stand on history’s page as the Hunter of weak women, and innocent children, the Hunter to destroy defenceless 161 villages and refined and beautiful homes—to torture afresh the agonized hearts of widows; the Hunter of Africa’s poor sons and daughters, to lure them on to ruin and death of soul and body; the Hunter with the relentless heart of a wild beast, the face of a fiend and the form of a man. ”

“ Few great established nations in all time have ever exhibited capacity and direction in government equal to hers, sustained as she was by the iron will and fixed persistence of the extraordinary man who was her chief; and few have ever won such a series of brilliant victories as that which illuminates forever the annals of her splendid armies, while the fortitude and patience of her people, and particularly of her noble women, under almost incredible trials and sufferings, have never been surpassed in the history of the world. ”

“ Our own people must write it, and our children must study it. For more than twenty-five years the life of the South was the drama of the nineteenth century; and no drama is complete without woman’s part in it. The war between the Southern and Northern States was one of the bloodiest in history. The Southern States claimed the right of secession from the Union—a right which during the first 44 seventy years of the Nation’s life was never questioned. The Northern States claimed the right to coerce our States back into what they called the Union—a right never before thought of. ”

“ Miles and miles of smoke from burning houses, barns, and mills could be seen every day and the red line shone by night. He did not burn all the dwellings, but for months and years there stood the lone chimneys of hundreds of once happy homes. These chimneys were called “Sherman’s sentinels.” As he said, “War is hell.” It is hell when conducted on the devil’s plan instead of the principles of civilized warfare. For all time to come the march of Sherman and the burning of the Shenandoah Valley by Sheridan will cause the American patriot, North and South, to hang his head in shame. ”