Tuesday, September 06, 2005
In my Civil War readings for this semester I stumbled upon a jewel of a letter from a Union soldier to the folks back home about "morale" at the front lines. I wish I could publish the whole thing but it's kind of late now and the letter is fairly wordy. So I'll just run through the most profound parts and hopefully maybe find a webpage later with the whole thing. It was written in the spring of 1863, following crushing Union defeats at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville and yet somehow this soldier still could say some of the following things:
"There are but very few men in this regiment that desire peace on any terms short of entire submission on the part of the enemy."
"(War-Protesters) are not the rule, they are exceptions, and there is hardly enough of them to make a decent exception."
"They would consider that (peace at any price) tarnished their honor and robbed them of the praise and glory that would justly belong to them...."
"If our friends at home joins hands with the citizen rebels here and advocate their cause, they will expect to receive the same regard from the soldiers that we give these; and that is just what we are obliged to give them and no more."
"Defeats are not the only way to demoralize our army. Preach to them the justice of the rebel course, dwell largely on their grievances, speak of the injustice and corruption of our own government, and if soldiers will believe you, you have done more to demoralize the army than the enemy could by a thorough victory of their arms."
"Whatever tends to weaken the faith (in the justice of the Union cause) cannot be born of patriotism."
excerpted from "Major Problems in the Civil War and Reconstruction (2nd ed.), edited by Michael Perman, pps. 130-131.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
"There are but very few men in this regiment that desire peace on any terms short of entire submission on the part of the enemy."
"(War-Protesters) are not the rule, they are exceptions, and there is hardly enough of them to make a decent exception."
"They would consider that (peace at any price) tarnished their honor and robbed them of the praise and glory that would justly belong to them...."
"If our friends at home joins hands with the citizen rebels here and advocate their cause, they will expect to receive the same regard from the soldiers that we give these; and that is just what we are obliged to give them and no more."
"Defeats are not the only way to demoralize our army. Preach to them the justice of the rebel course, dwell largely on their grievances, speak of the injustice and corruption of our own government, and if soldiers will believe you, you have done more to demoralize the army than the enemy could by a thorough victory of their arms."
"Whatever tends to weaken the faith (in the justice of the Union cause) cannot be born of patriotism."
excerpted from "Major Problems in the Civil War and Reconstruction (2nd ed.), edited by Michael Perman, pps. 130-131.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
// posted by The Pendragon @ 10:44 PM 
