A Patriotic speech.
--
Hon. B. H. Hill, of
Georgia, made a speech at
Macon last week, from which we take the following extract, as full of good sense as it is of patriotism:
And we can crush this enemy.
I feel that they are as much our prisoners now as the
Yankees at
Andersonville.
How can that be done?
Not by discouraging those willing to fight; not by speculating and extortionist.
Not by failing earnestly to support the organized power, but only by the reverse of all those propositions.
Is it possible we cannot crush
Sherman?
He has three hundred miles of railroad to keep up, which must and can be destroyed.
He must not himself escape.
We have the means to do this.
We must return the absentees.
They are everywhere.
They eat at your tables; you meet them in your parlors; you meet them on the streets; you all know
who they are.--Cease complaining of the gallant soldiers in the field and urge forward the absentees.
Do that, and the moon will not wax and wane thrice before
Sherman is defeated and the exiles can go home.
I know that we all want peace, and, if God knows my heart, there is no one who more fervently prays for it than I do. But how can we make it?
Not with
Sherman, who says he means extermination.--I recently read a letter from him more intensified with malignity than ever escaped the lips of man.--He said he meant to destroy the present people and populate our country with a better people — the
Yankee!
You can make with him, or
Lincoln, only one peace — that is submission.
Go to
General Lee's army and you will find its spirit truly animating.
Every brigade in it thinks it can whip
Grant.
Why, then, indulge in despondency?
It can do no good.
Georgians! do not despond.
In the midst of disaster be strong.
I do not doubt.
Sherman, in
Atlanta, must be destroyed.
I said twelve months ago that if the enemy ever got to
Atlanta he would be destroyed.
It is true, I would have preferred his being defeated before he got there.
But now we can and will crush the enemy, and that very soon.
If
Lincoln is defeated, and
McClellan elected, in the coming election, we may have peace.
But there is no peace party in the
North if we are willing to be subjugated.
All will subjugate us if they can.--Peace can only come by the defeat of the enemy.
McClellan will never be elected unless
Sherman is defeated.
The preservation of our honor, the preservation of our State, the election of
McClellan, and the securing of an honorable peace, all depend upon the defeat of
Sherman.
Every good to freemen depends upon his defeat.
