Correspondence of the Richmond Dispatch.
our course — murder — the crops, &c.
O'Conner, Washington Co., Ga., July 1.
I have an only son, and him I have offered on the altar of my country.
I wish I had an hundred to send to the army, to do battle for the noble cause of liberty and independence.
I did hope that the victory won by our fathers in the days which tried men's snouts, when Great Britain endeavored in vain to subjugate us, would have proved a lasting one, but alas!
how soon does the most fine gold become dim. Not a single century has elapsed before our brethren — men boasting of our free institutions, and setting themselves forth as the champions of freedom per excellence, and philanthropists above all the rest — have undertaken to do the very same wicked thing which Great Britain undertook a great many years ago, and failed to accomplish — to crush out the spirits of liberty from as and to establish a despotic government over us, thus proving themselves tyrants in disposition and sniveling hypocrites in fact.
A murder has been committed in this county lately.
A man by the name of Praus poisoned his wife, and is now in jail.
It is hard to restrain the motordom taking him out and hanging him.
I have traveled considerably this spring and summer over South Caroling and Georgia, and found the crops generally very fine, though suffering now in places for rain.
The wheat crop has been abundant.
Never perhaps was there so copious a turn out in the South.
We shall have bread and to spare.
The oat crop, too, is good, and if we can only henceforward have good seasons, there will be an abundance of corn made.
Providence thus far seems to smile upon us in all our efforts, and we trust that he will continue to do so, and send rain upon the earth, that it may yield us a good supply of the staff of life.
This war, I verily believe, is going to prove a benefit to us. It is teaching our people how to economise, and how to live independently of the North.
We will eat our own meat and bread, wear our own apparel, patronise our own newspapers, and visit our own watering places.
In short, live at home and within our own means, and make our homes a paradise, where we shall never hear or read of Militarism, Mormonism, Free-Loversm, Abolitionism, and other abominable isms, which have disgraced the Northern section of this once prosperous and happy Union, and which has brought about its disruption.
S. J. McM. 