The Daily Dispatch: June 24, 1863., [Electronic resource]

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The true spirit of a Freeman.

--The Huntsville (Ala.) Confederate contains an extract from a private letter written by Mr. Isaac Winston, an old farmer in Franklin county, Ala, whose property was destroyed by the Yankees in their raid through there.--It breathes a spirit which shows its writer to be a true patriot:

The extent of damages never can be known. They took all of my negroes off except one--an old fellow 68 years old. But my carriage driver and body servant for thirty years, after getting to Tuscumbia, went to the Federal General and informed him that he would rather cut his, and all of his families throats, than to be forced to leave his master. They gave him a pass to come home, which he did with his family--19 in all. They kept 34 of my negroes, 28 horses and mules, and 4 wagons, took about 300 bales of my cotton, and destroyed my crop, stock, tools, fowls; etc.--With what they took and our armies burnt, I lost about 1,000 bales. They have ruined my son, and took the most of my son-in-law's property, destroying everything they could.--But, if we gain our independence, (as we will certainly do,) and lose all of our property, we will be much better oil than to have remained with them. I do believe it would be better with them. and a for the earth to be a ball chunk of fire to be thrown in it, than to have remained with them, or ever return to them, which we will never do; no, sooner die.