Life in Dixie during the War, 1861-1862-1863-1864-1865. Gay Mary Ann Harris
to that time.
“Resolved, That the fundamental difference between mere political agitation and the action we propose is this, it requires the acquiescence of the slave power, and the other only its opposite.
“Resolved, That the necessity for disunion is written in the whole existing character and condition of the two sections of the country – in social organizations, education, habits and laws – in the dangers of our white citizens of Kansas and of our colored ones in Boston, in the wounds of Charles Sumner and the laurels of his assailant – and no government on earth was ever strong enough to hold together such opposing forces.
“Resolved, That this movement does not seek merely disunion, but the more perfect union of the free States by the expulsion of the slave States from the confederation in which they have ever been an element of discord, danger and disgrace.
“Resolved, That it is not probable that the ultimate severance of the union will be an action of deliberation or discussion, but that a long period of deliberation and discussion must precede it, and this we meet to begin.
“Resolved, That henceforward, instead of regarding it as an objection to any system of policy that will lead to the separation of the States, we will proclaim that to be the highest of all recommendations and the grateful proof of statesmanship; and we will support politically and otherwise, such men and measures as appear to tend most to this result.
“Resolved, That by the repeated confession of Northern and Southern statesmen, the existence of the union is the chief guarantee of slavery, and that the despots of the whole world and the slaves of the whole world have everything to hope from its destruction and the rise of a free Northern republic.
“Resolved, That the sooner the separation takes place the more peaceable it will be; but that peace or war is a mere secondary consideration in view of our present perils. Slavery must be conquered; peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.”
To keep before the people of the United States, North and South, the hostility of the then controling spirit of the North towards the South, the above resolutions cannot be repeated too often. Nor were they an isolated example of party fanaticism. The stock and staple of the entire republican press was slander of the Southern people; and like noxious weeds it well nigh rooted out all that was elevating to man, and ennobling to woman. The pulpit became a rostrum from which bitter invective of the South flowed in Niagaran torrents; and the beautiful fields of Poesy were made to yield an abundant crop of briar and bramble and deadly Upas.
The burden of every song, of every prayer, of every sermon, was the “poor down-trodden slave” of the South. What wonder that seed thus constantly and malignantly sown sprang up and bore a crop of discontent which nothing short of “separation” from the enemy could appease. We, too, felt that under the existing circumstances peace or war was a mere secondary consideration in view of our perils in the union, and took measures to withdraw from a sectional union of States that had ceased to respect State sovereignty outside of its own borders.
The insults and taunts and the encroachments of fifty years had welded the people of the South into a compact party organization, animated for all substantial purposes by one sentiment and one glorious principle of patriotism, and never was there a movement in the annals of nations that had a more unanimous support. And when the tocsin of war resounded from one end of the country to the other, and reverberated over hills and through valleys, the sons and sires in the beautiful Sunny South, from the high born and cultured gentleman in whose veins flowed the blue blood of the cavalier, to the humblest tiller of the soil and the shepherd on the mountain sides, buckled on the paraphernalia of warfare and reported for duty. To arms! To arms! was the patriotic appeal of a people who had no other redress; and I repeat with emphasis that never a people responded with more chivalrous alacrity or more earnestness of purpose.
I was too well versed in the politics of the country, too familiar with the underground workings of the enemy, to hesitate. I, too, enlisted in the struggle, and in the glorious efforts to establish “home rule and domestic felicity,” not literally in the ranks of the soldier, but in the great army of women who were willing to toil and to suffer, and to die, if need be, for the cause of the South.
I had but one brother, a darling young half brother, Thomas J. Stokes, who had gone to Texas to practice his chosen profession. With all the intensity of my ardent nature I loved this brother, and would have died that he might live; and yet with all the perils involved, it was with a thrill of pride that I read his long letter breathing, pulsing, with the patriotism illustrated by our ancestry in the revolutionary struggle for American Independence. And now this noble brother and myself, though widely separated, enlisted in aid of the same great cause; the perpetuity of constitutional rights. He to serve on the battle-field, and I to care for the sick and wounded soldiers, or to labor in any capacity that would give greatest encouragement to our cause.
CHAPTER I.
THE MAGNOLIA CADETS
Notwithstanding the restful signification of “Alabama,” the State bearing that name had passed the ordinance of secession, and mingled her voice with those of other States which had previously taken steps in that direction.
Then followed a call for a convention, having in view the election of a President of a new Republic to take its place among the nations of the earth, and to be known throughout the world as the Southern Confederacy. As an intensely interested spectator I was at that convention; and will remember, to my dying day, that grand spectacle. Yea, that was a grand and solemn occasion – that of issuing a mandate “Let there be another nation, and to all intents and purposes there was another nation.” In the course of human events it requires centuries to evolve such moral courage and sublimity of thought and action; and the proceedings of that day will stand out in bold relief as the acme of patriotic greatness.
Ah! that scene at the capitol of the State of Alabama, when Jefferson Davis, the chosen leader of the Southern people, took the oath of office and pledged undying fidelity to the best interests of his own sunny land.
On that momentous occasion not a word was uttered denunciatory of the States we were seeking to leave in their fancied superiority, and the great concourse of people there assembled was too familiar with the history of the times to require recapitulation of the causes of the alienation which led by rapid ascent to the summit of discontent, and determination to no longer submit to the domination of an enemy.
That scene being enacted as a preliminary, a call was made for Alabama’s quota of volunteers to defend the principles enunciated and the interests involved.
The Magnolia Cadets, under the leadership of Captain N. H. R. Dawson, of Selma, were among the first to respond. I accompanied my cousins of Alabama to see this company of noble, handsome young men mustered into the military service of their country. It was a beautiful sight! Wealthy, cultured young gentlemen voluntarily turning their backs upon the luxuries and endearments of affluent homes, and accepting in lieu the privations and hardships of warfare; thereby illustrating to the world that the conflict of arms consequent upon the secession was not to be “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.”
I saw them as they stood in line to receive the elegant silken banner, bearing the stars and bars of a new nation, made and presented to them by Miss Ella Todd and her sister, Mrs. Dr. White, of Lexington, Kentucky, who were introduced to the audience by Captain Dawson as the sisters of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, the wife of the president of the United States.
I was thus made aware that Mrs. Lincoln and her illustrious husband were Southerners. I have since been in the small, mud-chinked log cabin in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, in which he was born, and in which his infancy and little boyhood were domiciled. Mrs. White had married an Alabamian, and as his wife became a citizen of his State. Her sister, Miss Todd, was visiting her at the enactment of the scene described, and under like circumstances, also became a citizen of Alabama. She married the valiant gentleman who introduced her to the public on that memorable occasion.
I have sought and obtained from Mrs. Mary Dawson Jordan, of Chattanooga, Tennessee, a daughter of Captain Jordan, a complete record of the names of the officers and members of this patriotic company of Alabama’s noble sons – native