Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Poetry and Incidents., Volume 1.
Frank Moore, Ed.

New Orleans, May 1.--That the prospect is serious, we are not disposed to deny, but it contains nothing to dishearten or create alarm. The South is unconquerable on her own territory. Her armies are not composed of hired mercenaries, nor of the wretched offscourings of great cities, who are forced | to choose between enrollment and starvation. They are made up for the most part of the youthful, the vigorous, the intelligent and devoted children of the soil. The cause we fight for is deemed sacred, and if its justification should demand the services of every able-bodied citizen, not one will be found to flinch from the ordeal. We may have many sacrifices to make, much suffering to endure, many precious lives to lose, much pecuniary and commercial [112] distress to encounter, but all this and more will be cheerfully sustained, sooner than surrender our birthright to the despotic and fanatical hosts of the North. Nor must it be imagined that these losses and sacrifices will be confined to us. The North cannot live without Southern trade, and this is gone from her forever. She cannot put immense armies on a war footing and maintain them save at a fearful expense, which will tax all her resources to meet. Every blow she aims at us will recoil with terrible force upon itself. In striving to conquer us, the North is exhausting her wealth, her strength, and her productive energies, and will feel the pernicious consequences of her folly and iniquity for countless years. Her people, in the paroxysm of insanity under which they labor, fail to perceive the desperate act of suicide they are committing; but when it will have been irretrievably consummated, they will be haunted by vain regrets for the ruin and impoverishment they have brought upon themselves — and all this, too, without accomplishing the wicked object they have at heart.--N. O. Bee, May 4.