True Patriotism.
Private Minner, of
Chapman's battery, who received a mortal wound at the battle near the
White Sulphur, left his property, $15,000, after the death of his mother, to the
Confederacy.
What an illustration does this example present of the profoundness and intensity of the love of country which glows in the hearts of our Southern soldiers!
What a contrast to the base and selfish greed which has swallowed up all patriotism in the bosoms of extortioners and speculators!--Can they read such a case as this without blushing scarlet at their conscious vileness?
Here is a private soldier, giving his life, the Just drop of his blood, and the last breath of his brave soul, to his country, and with that last breath bequeathing to her every dollar of his possessions!
And here are they, who have never for one hour put their persons in peril, who are grasping at every chance to make money out of the necessities of the army, who are waxing fat upon the sufferings of the people, and are clutching at every grain of corn, and boarding every grain that they clutch, deaf to the groans and wailings of the wretched and famishing, and only eager to enrich their despicable selves, though it be at the expense of the lives of their fellow men and the independence of their country.
Who would not rather be the dead hero, whose memory will be surrounded by a halo of immortal light, so long as Freedom has a habitation among men, and Patriotism a shrine upon the earth, than the most gross and pampered of those birds of prey, whose talons are tearing out the hearts of the needy, and whose greedy beaks are forever thrust into every vein and artery of a suffering people.
