Respecting private property.
The U. S. journals admit that the
Confederates, in their late visit to
Maryland, respected private property.
When we take into consideration the destruction and rapine perpetrated by the
Federals in this country, the forbearance and moderation of our own soldiers, many of whose homes were lying in ashes, approach the sublime.
The
Yankees cannot attribute this humane conduct of the men of the
South to fear of retaliation.
Many of those gallant men had already suffered all that the enemy could inflict in this way; their farms were already desolated; they had no longer a house to be burned; all that revenge could lay hold of, it had already taken and destroyed.
Moreover, they had before them the experience of two campaigns in the
North, in which their uniform respect for private property had been repaid by houses plundered and burned, women and children robbed of their
wearing apparel, and sometimes visited with the most shocking fate; mills and provisions destroyed, and every effort employed to reduce the country to starvation.
Under such provocations, the civilization, the humane and Christian spirit manifested in the last invasion of
Maryland ought to challenge the admiration of mankind.
But experience has taught us not to expect the plaudits of the world, but to look to the approbation of that Power which has been our sole support in this contest, and whose favor is worth more than that of all the potentates of the earth.
Nevertheless, it is not without importance to appear before the nations and before posterity with such a record as the
Confederate States can show.
The world had been taught to regard us before this war as a half-civilized and bloody-minded people, cruel to our slaves, hot-headed and ferocious to our equals, without sentiments of humanity or religion, and destitute of true manly pith and vigor.
The war has disabused them of many of their errors, and it will vindicate our real character beyond quibble or exception, if we persevere to the end. It will then be seen that humanity, that forbearance to the weak and helpless, that self-respect and self- control are as pre-eminently Southern qualities as the magnificent courage which has extorted from all mankind shouts of admiration.
We owe it to ourselves and to our children that, whether we sink or swim, survive or perish, we do no injustice by any act of ours to the sublime virtues we have inherited from our ancestors.--If we fall, let us not lose both our honor and our cause.
If we triumph, let us show the world for the first time a battle-flag whose cross is not only the ensign of victory, but the emblem of mercy and justice.
