so many have died for. I don't believe in
Secession, but I do in Liberty. I want the South to conquer, dictate
its own terms, and go back to the Union, for I believe that, apart,
inevitable ruin awaits both. It is a rope of sand, this Confederacy,
founded on the doctrine of Secession, and will not last many years--not
five. The North Cannot subdue us. We are too determined to be free.
They have no right to confiscate our property to pay debts they
themselves have incurred. Death as a nation, rather than Union on such
terms. We will have our rights secured on so firm a basis that it can
never be shaken. If by power of overwhelming numbers they conquer us,
it will be a barren victory over a desolate land. We, the natives of
this loved soil, will be beggars in a foreign land; we will not submit
to despotism under the garb of Liberty. The North will find herself
burdened with an unparalleled debt, with nothing to show for it except
deserted towns, burning homes, a standing army which will govern with
no small caprice, and an impoverished land.

If that be treason, make the best of it!

May 17th.

One of these days, when peace is restored and we are quietly settled in
our allotted corners of this wide world without any particularly
exciting event to alarm us; and with the knowledge of what is now the
future, and will then be the dead past; seeing that all has been for
the best for us in the end; that all has come right in spite of us, we
will wonder how we could ever have been foolish enough to await each
hour in such breathless anxiety. We will ask ourselves if it was really
true that nightly, as we lay down to sleep, we did not dare plan for
the morning, feeling that we might be homeless and beggars before the
dawn. How unreal it will then seem! We will say it was our wild
imagination, perhaps. But how bitterly, horribly true it is now!

Four days ago the Yankees left us, to attack Vicksburg, leaving their
flag flying in the Garrison without a man to guard it, and with the
understanding that the town would be held responsible for it. It was
intended for a trap; and it succeeded. For night before last, it was
pulled down and torn to pieces.

Now, unless Will will have the kindness to sink a dozen of their ships
up there,--I hear he has command of the lower batteries,--they will
be back in a few days, and will execute their threat of shelling the
town. If they