Richardson's Defense of the South

Bedication

TO THE PALMETTO GUARDS-COMPANY C OF THE 19TH

whose battlefields are in no less than six States; whose Victories are very many; whose drawn battles are very few; whose defeats are none; whose fallen comrades sleep in shallow graves as far separated as Gettysburg is from Olustee; whose muster roll numbered 126 brave hearts; whose fighting force after the battle of the Second Manassas numbered but two able for duty; and whose consecrated and unfaltering devotion to the cause of Constitutional liberty amid unsurpassed trials and privations for four long years commend them to the veneration of their posterity, and all lovers of law and liberty to the end of time: THESE PAGES ARE DEVOTEDLY, AFFECTIONATELY. AND PA

TRIOTICALLY DEDICATED BY THEIR COMRADE AND SINCERE

FRIEND.

J. A. Richardson.

HEM AOBK

PREFACE.

Its

The writer makes no apology for issuing this volume. prime object is to refute the atrocious accusations against the South before, during and after the war; and to do this within such a limited space as will be adapted to the wants of the general reader.

We have written this book in the spare moments of a busy life. It has required about three years to accomplish our task. During that time ou rresearches have been extensive and thorough. We challenge an investigation of the facts upon which our conclusions are based. They are incontrovertible.

Before the war, we were most bitterly and world-widely denounced because of the institution of slavery, for which both sections were equally responsible.

During the war, we were officially, and otherwise, denounced as traitors to our common country, and as rebels against the plan of the Constitution we had sworn to obey; and this, too, by those who had declared this same Constitution, "A Compact with Death and a league with Hell."

After the war, we were still called rebels and traitors. As late as July 12, 1911, Senator Heyburn, of Idaho, in the United States Senate, denounced our cause as "infamous." When rebuked by John Sharp Williams, he asked, "Well, was it a glorious cause?" .We propose to enlighten this benighted Westerner and others, and to prove that it was a glorious cause.

If in this volume any expressions seem harsh and bitter let it not be attributed to any lingering animosity on the part of the author, but to the facts that falsely proclaimed him a traitor. Let it not be attributed to the passing of slavery, for, as we have shown in the proper place, that this institution would have been abolished without the war; and, besides, eighty per cent of the Southern soldiers did not own slaves. Nor let it be attributed to the failure of the Confederacy, but to the base misrepresentations and vituperations heaped on the people of the South. The home of secession was not in the South, but in the North, in the

midst of the enemies of the Constitution, the anti-slavery agitators of the North. It was there the abusers of the South and the Constitution lived, and there they multiplied till they were sufficiently strong to disregard both the demands of the Constitution and the rights of the South.

We, therefore, ask that all our words which are seemingly severe be regarded in the light of the facts. If still It is believed they are too severe, write them by the side of the words of James G. Blaine, found in this volume (Chap. XXXIX) and if they prove to be one-tenth as cruel and unauthorized as the words of "the plumed knight," our apologies are already made.

Just one other word here; every true Southern veteran is an American citizen of the truest type, as loyal as the loyalest, as willing to imperil his life in the interests or defense of the common country, as the most patriotic son of any section of this great American Republic. But they will never confess that their cause was not that of the fathers-that of the common Constitution of the American States forming the American Union.

They believe that their unparalleled devotion to the American Constitution has a tendency to enshrine it in the American heart as never before; and to give it a place of security unknown before their great sacrifice for its principles. If constitutional government is to be preserved unimpaired for the coming generations, it must be, and it will be through the conservative spirit of the South.

The Author.