A few Sober Thoughts for volunteers.
Editors Dispatch: There is one idea,
Messrs. Editors, that the offices of State Governments and Confederate Government, from the
President down, and the newspaper press, ought to urge and impress upon the volunteers now in the army — viz: that the cause of the
South for the next campaign is in a great measure to depend upon them.
if our present volunteers now draw back — if they lose that noble enthusiasm which prompted them at first to meet the enemy, without stopping to count the cost, whether of personal inconvenience or pecuniary loss, it would have been better if the contest had never been begun.
We have gained nothing till we gain all we first took up arms for; nay, we lose all if we do not gain all.
The dependence of the country for the next campaign upon the volunteers now in the field, rests upon two principal grounds.
The first is, that the present volunteers are the elite of the courage and manhood of the country.
Let them now fall out of the ranks of the army, and where can their like be found in anything like the same numbers?
I assure you, and I assure them, that their places cannot be supplied in any considerable degree.
The second ground is, that the enemy, from necessity, must make an onward, movement, (if ever,) in the next three or four months; it may be sooner, and, can any one suppose if the present volunteers, or any considerable number of them, retire from the army, and their places have to be filled by raw militia, that we can successfully meet an enemy that
Gen. McClellan has been drilling and preparing for last six months with the most rigorous energy?
It would be impossible for us to succeed in such a contest, and it should not be thought of by any one.
If it could be known to the enemy, (and they do and will know,) that there was a general re-volunteering of our ‘"braves"’ now in the field, of those who met them at
Bethel, at Blackburn's ford, at
Manassas, and at
Leesburg, I really believe it would make more for our cause than any one thing that could happen: It should encourage all who love the
South, and discourage all her enemies; it would tell
Europe that we are in fedrnest, and having staked all upon the independence of the
South; we meant to stand by it. The principal complaint I have heard from the army is that many of the volunteers have not been able to get furloughs to visit home for a short time; I have no doubt there is some just ground for this complaint in many cases.
But, in justice to their
Generals, the volunteers should recollect that it is impossible for a commander to know when an enemy twenty miles off may make an attack, and therefore he has to be a ways ready, If however, any relief can be granted in the mode and manner of furloughs, our
President and commanders should at once have it done, But how much better for the volunteers to bear even this inconvenience for a short time longer, than that the enemy should gain any advantage over us!
I do not know what others may think, but I have no doubt, if the whole
South will now, one and all, take a strong pull and a pull altogether, that the war will be ended in twelve months.
But, if there is a drawing back by any, and especially by our volunteers, who are the back bone of the cause, when it will and, or how it will and, I will not suffer myself to think.
To be subjugated by Yankees, and thereby become the by-word and reproach to the whole world, and that, too, after so glorious's beginning is what I will not contemplate, "Volunteers of
Virginia, sufferious who is too old to be of any use as a volunteer, but who has an only son who has been with you ever since April, to beg you, one and all, to take this matter up yourselves — Do not wait for legislators and
Generals.
Forget, for the take of your country, whatever you may have thought you had to complain of, and now, science, commence the good, the important, the necessary work of re-volunteering.
George,
Washington was seven years in the war of the Revolution, and never saw home but ones.
When on his way so
Yorktown old
Daniel Morgan fought from
Quebec to the Cowpens, for nearly as many years, without going home; and cannot you serve two years?
Mr. Editor, is there any impropriety in my suggesting that probably it our
President would visit the different campaign
Eastern Virginia, review the troops, express to them his interest and his sympathy for them, and out by personal examination what choose
exist and what hardships could be done away with, that it would have a good effect upon the troops?
And if he would go a little further, by inquiring out cases, whether of officers or privates who had distinguished themselves by good conduct, whether in the field or in the camp, and let it be known that his eye is upon the deserving, it would certainly warm the blood of the volunteer as the cold winds whistle around him upon picket or guard. O. P. Q.
