The gallant and true-hearted son of
North Carolina who writes to us from
Tallahassee, and who calls himself an old man, is altogether mistaken in his idea that any remarks in this paper were ever intended to ridicule North Carolinians.
On the contrary, we have bestowed upon them the highest encomiums.
If any line or paragraph seemed to chime in with any sentiment ever uttered in disparagement of their State, it was altogether ironical.
For North Carolinians we have always had an especial liking.
We know them well.
There is no more sincere, open-hearted, open-handed and manly race on the globe.
They are not yet corrupted by railroads; their State having been so slow to introduce an institution which we have long thought impairs rather than improves the morality of a people.
They are so straight-forward, so devoid of dissimulation and trickery, that they are hardly a remove from the political and moral state of our revolutionary fathers.
They are not over-impulsive; but proceed with deliberation, determination and coolness to perform whatever they undertake.
These characteristics were so clearly mirrored in the countenances of
Col. Hill's men that were ordered to charge upon the New York Zouaves--they looked so bent on what they were told to do, and their demeanor so utterly precluded all conjecture as to the possibility of their turning to the right or the left, or doing anything else until they charged as they were ordered, that the scamps upon whom they were advancing incontinently fled as the only way of escape from such determined men ! It was well for the flying ragamuffins; but all the worse for society.
Had the North Carolinians reached them they would have relieved the world of many a scape-gallows.
Ridicule
North Carolina!
After
Virginia, no State stands higher in our respect and affections.
