Jubal Early

“ May God defend and bless those noble women of the Valley, who so often ministered to the wounded, sick and dying Confederate soldiers, and gave their last morsel of bread to the hungry! They bore with heroic courage the privations, sufferings, persecutions and dangers, to which the war which was constantly waged in their midst exposed them, and upon no portion of the Southern people did the disasters which finally befell our army and country, fall with more crushing effect than upon them. ”

“ Was ever so absurd a farce enacted as that which was enacted by the Chief Justice of England, when he announced in Westminster Hall before the assembled bar of London, that the air breathed by a nation of slave-traders was too pure for the slave himself. None but an Englishman would have failed to discover its absurdity. ”

“ It is hard to conceive how the glory or prosperity of a nation could be advanced by giving currency to fallacies, or suppressing the truth in regard to the actual condition of African slavery in the Southern states.
It would seem that as Great Britain had had so much to do with fostering the institution in those states, it would be rather gratifying, than otherwise, to its ministers and its people, to know that the descendants of those who had been ravished from their native country by the cupidity of their predecessors, were in a contented and comfortable condition. ”

“ When the passions and infatuations of the day shall have been dissipated by time, and all the results of the late war shall have passed in irrevocable history, this future chronicler of that history will have a most important duty to perform, and posterity, while poring over its pages, will be lost in wonder at the follies and crimes committed in this generation. ”

“ Such is, and perhaps ever will be, the character of human philanthropy, that it troubles itself more about the sufferings which exist a long way off or only in imagination, than those which are before its eyes. ”

“ As for all the enemies who have overrun or aided in overrunning my country, there is a wide and impassable gulf between us, in which I see the blood of slaughtered friends, comrades, and countrymen, which all the waters in the firmament above and the seas beneath cannot wash away. Those enemies have undertaken to render our cause odious and infamous ”

“ In the year 1763, the celebrated case of Somerset, a slave who had been carried to England by his master from one of the British West India Islands, came up before Lord Mansfield in Westminster Hall on a writ of habeas corpus, and that distinguished Chief Justice of the King's Bench, in delivering his opinion discharging the petition, said: "The air of England has long been too pure for a slave, and every man who breathes it is free." ”

“ Our detractors have convicted themselves of the slanders they have uttered by taking the Southern slave from the Cotton fields to the ballot box and vested him with all the privileges of an American citizen. If the institution of slavery has so tutored the negro that immediately his bonds are loosened, he is qualified for the privileges of the ballot box, what a civilizing tendency that institution must have had. ”

“ Not only has the question of right not been decided by the arbitrament of arms, but the proposition that "The voice of the people is the voice of God" is no better established now than on that memorable occasion when the people cried "crucify him! ”

“ This sentiment all true men everywhere must appreciate and honour. But the soil of Virginia is now, and henceforth will be, held sacred in the hearts of all true Southern men and women, because she has been baptized in the blood and has received into her bosom the remains of thousands upon thousands of the truest and noblest sons of the entire Confederacy. ”

“ We spurn the idea that the free, sovereign and independent State of Massachusetts is reduced to a mere municipal corporation, without the power to protect its people or to defend them from oppression from whatever quarter it comes. Whenever the national compact is violated and the citizens of this state are oppressed by cruel and unauthorized enactments, this legislature is bound to interpose its power and to wrest from the oppressor its victim. ”

“ In the year 1834, the British parliament passed an act for the abolition of slavery in the British West Indies, her colonies in those islands being all of the slave colonies left to Great Britain. These colonies had dwindled into insignificance and formed but a very inconsiderable part of her gigantic colonial system. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and her possessions in the East Indies furnished an ample field for British settlement and colonial trade, which dwarfed into very diminutive proportions the British interests in the West Indies. ”

“ I have come into exile rather than submit to the yoke of the oppressors of my country; but I have never thought of attributing aught of blame or censure to those true men who, after having nobly done their duty in the dreadful struggle through which we passed, now, that it has gone against us, remain to share the misfortunes of their people, and to aid and comfort them in their trials ”

“ The condition of domestic slavery, as it existed in the South, had not only resulted in a great improvement in the moral and physical condition of the negro race, but had furnished a class of labourers as happy and contented as any in the world, if not more so. Their labour had not only developed the immense resources of the immediate country in which they were located, but was the main source of the great prosperity of the United States, and furnished the means for the employment of millions of the working classes in other countries. ”

“ In regard to my own services, all I have to say is, that I have the consciousness of having done my duty to my country, to the very best of my ability, and, whatever may be my fate, I would not exchange that consciousness for untold millions. ”

“ The growing demand in Europe for colonial products now gave a new impulse to the slave trade, and its profits were very great. It was not only recognized by the government, but was sustained by the universal public sentiment in England, and was fostered and cherished by Parliament as a lucrative traffic. ”

“ As was to have been expected, our enemies have flooded the press with sketches and histories, in which all the appliances of a meretricious literature have been made use of, to glorify their own cause and its supporters, and to blacken ours. ”

“ On my passage through the lower Valley into Maryland, a lady had said to me, with tears in her eyes, "Our lot is a hard one and we see no peace; but there are a few green spots in our lives, and they are, when the Confederate soldiers come along and we can do something for them." ”

“ There was an individuality about the Confederate soldier which caused him to act often in battle according to his own opinions, and thereby impair his own efficiency; and the tempting bait offered by the rich plunder of the camps of the enemy's well-fed and well-clothed troops, was frequently too great for our destitute soldiers, and caused them to pause in the career of victory. ”

“ Let any one compare the condition of the African in his native land, with that of the slaves of the South before the violent abolition of slavery, and then say whether that institution, which had produced such a vast improvement in his condition was so great a wrong after all. ”

“ The mercantile marines of Great Britain and New England are monuments to the African slave trade, upon the profits of which they were mainly built up.
It has been often said that the assertion contained in the Declaration of Independence "That all men are created equal, etc.," was entirely inconsistent with the continuation of slavery in any of the United States ”

“ If on the contrary that institution has kept him in utter ignorance of moral and Christian duty and made him the cringing, degraded creature he has been represented, what a monster must be he who proposes to vest in the untutored savage the power of governing others while the white man is disfranchised. ”

“ The civilized world will find, too late, that its philanthropy has been all false, and its religion all wrong on this subject; and the people of the United States will find that, under the pretence of "saving the life of the nation, and upholding the old flag," they have surrendered their own liberties into the hands of the worst of all tyrants, a body of senseless fanatics. ”

“ His flesh cried out to live with living men, And join that soul which to the inward ken Of all the hymning train was present there. Strong passion's daring sees not aught to dare: The frost-locked starkness of his frame low-bent, His voice's penury of tones long spent, He felt not; all his being leaped in flame To meet his kindred as they onward came Slackening and wheeling toward the temple's face: He rushed before them to the glittering space, And, with a strength that was but strong desire, Cried, "I am Jubal, I! ”

“ The truth is, that several of the statesmen of the South and especially of Virginia, deplored slavery as an evil and expressed the hope that at some future time, in some way that might be desired, the institution might be abolished in such manner as to secure the welfare of both races, but none of them could suggest any mode for doing so, and though perfectly sincere, they contented themselves with expressing the hope that the way might be discovered. ”

“ I have rather be the humblest private soldier who fought in the ranks of the Confederate Army, and now, maimed and disabled, hobbles on this crutches from house to house, to receive his daily bread from the hands of the grateful women for whose homes he fought, than the highest of those renegades and traitors. Let them enjoy the advantages of their present positions as best they may! ”

“ He believes that evil spirits walk at the sunset hour by the edge of forests; he adores the devil, who is thought to haunt burial-grounds and, in mortal terror of his enmity, leaves food for him in the woods. ”

“ As the enemy had got into the mountains, where nothing useful could be accomplished by pursuit, I did not deem it proper to continue it farther. A great part of my command had had nothing to eat for the last two days, except a little bacon which was obtained at Liberty. The cooking utensils were in the trains, and the effort to have bread baked at Lynchburg had failed. Neither the waggon trains, nor the artillery of the 2nd Corps, were up, and I knew that the country, through which Hunter's route led for forty or fifty miles, was, for the most part, a desolate mountain region ”

“ The traders of New England managed to elude this act as they had done the restrictions put upon the slave trade for the benefit of the English merchants. The manufacture of rum and the trade from all the ports of New England still continued with great activity up to the commencement of the Revolution, and served to build up the commerce of that section, as the same trade had built up the commerce of the mother country. ”

“ His color secures him from the detection of a blush when he lies. Though utterly ignorant of any conception of art, he is not unskillful in the manufacture of cooking pots and tobacco pipes of clay; he has a bellows-forge of his own invention; he can reduce iron from its ores and manufacture it. ”

“ When the right to discuss, deliberate and decide, exists, those possessing it, must necessarily be the sole judges of how it is to be exercised. The Southern states did deliberate and did decide that they could no longer remain in the Union with safety, and therefore they determined to withdraw from it. If the Southern people had been hurried into secession by their leaders, they are the parties to complain and to hold the guilty ones responsible. ”

“ Too lazy, except when severely pressed, to attend to the labors of the field, he compels his wives to plant the roots or seeds, and gather the scanty harvest. In hunting and in war, his main occupation, he relies upon cunning and will follow his prey with surprising agility, crawling like a snake prone upon the ground. ”

“ The proposition for the prohibition of slavery in the territories, was not one in favor of the freedom of the slaves themselves, as their introduction into those territories would not increase the number of slaves, but would expand them on a wider sphere, thus rendering it easier to adopt measures for emancipation, at least in some of the states if that was desirable, and making the condition of the slaves more comfortable if emancipation did not take place ”

“ The most conclusive answer to all the slanders against Southern slave owners is to be found in the rapid multiplication of the slaves by natural increase, which could not have taken place if such barbarities had been practiced or such immorality had existed, as has been represented. ”

“ There were many politicians by trade, whose aspirations had been unsuccessful and who cared nothing for the negro or the cause of freedom, but who fell in with the "free-soil" movement, as it was called with the selfish hope of building up a great sectional party under the auspices of which they could obtain and retain that power which they had failed to acquire otherwise. ”

“ My operations and my campaign stand on their own merits, whatever they may be. Nor, in anything I may have found it necessary to say in regard to the conduct of my troops, do I wish to be understood as, in way, decrying the soldiers who constituted the rank and file of my commands. I believe that the world has never produced a body of men superior, in courage, patriotism, and endurance, to the private soldiers of the Confederate armies. ”