Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Poetry and Incidents., Volume 3.
Frank Moore, Ed.

Having been long familiar with your soft feather beds, well-supplied tables, beautiful flowers, and hospitable smiles, more charming even than your fish and game, we entreat you, with every assurance of our most tender regard, to come and partake of some of the delicacies which we have appropriated by a “military necessity.”

It really grieves our loving hearts to live on the fat of your land while you are houseless, particularly when we have so often boasted of your hospitality, and been your honored guests, year after year, “without money and without price.”

If you decline this affectionate overture remember that we are cognizant to every creek and every corner in your larders; we know all your little rivers of milk and honey, the small hillocks of fresh butter, and the promontories of orange preserve jars, and we will appropriate them all to the glory of Abraham the First.

On the other hand, if you will only separate yourselves from the rebel husbands, sons, and brothers, who are behaving so improperly to our blessed Government, by fighting for your homes and your honor, you shall be taken to our affectionate embrace, and boquets of roses, such as you used to place around our firesides, and on our toilet tables, shall be showered upon you. Yours, with sacred memories,