By W. W. Mills.
In every Southern State at the commencement of the rebellion there lived
a class of men, prominent and influential in political and social life,
whose patriotism, devotion to principle, wisdom and courage, trials and
sufferings, have been scarcely touched upon by late writers upon the war
and its causes and results. Most of them were then of mature years; all
of them had been born and reared in the South and were slave-owners.
Many of them were Democrats; none of them were then Republicans. Most of
them were disappointed at the election of Mr. Lincoln, and feared that
his administration and that of the Republican party, which they
considered sectional and aggressive, would be unfriendly, if not
actually hostile, to the welfare of their section, where their pride,
interests, and sympathies were all centered. Many of their wives,
mothers and daughters were Secessionists. Their sons, many of them, were
the first to enlist in the Confederate ranks. These men doubted the
policy of secession, and, with a courage and manhood which have no
parallel, denounced the movement and predicted its failure and the ruin
of the South. In so doing they knew that they were courting certain
political ostracism and defeat, subjecting themselves to danger and
perhaps to death, and to what was equally terrible to men of their pride
and character—the changing of the love and confidence of their neighbors
and friends, and even their kindred, into bitter hatred; and yet these
men through all those dreary, doubtful years of war, some at their
homes, some in the mountains, some in exile, some in prison and others
on the battlefield beneath the stars and stripes, never wavered or lost
hope in the success of the one cause for which they had sacrificed and
dared so much—the success of the Union arms.
Their voices were never heard among the croakers; when they could not
approve the policy of the government, they fought on in silence; when
colored troops were enlisted, they faltered not; when the Emancipation
Proclamation swept away their fortunes, they did not complain. The
success of one political party or the other was no victory to them,
except as it indicated the determination of the people to preserve the
government by suppressing the rebellion. They did not regard the war, as
many writers do, as a “war between the North and South,” or a “war
between the States,” but a war between those everywhere who loved their
government and those who wished to see it die; and if their hearts were
not too full of sadness to harbor bitter feelings, those feelings went
out toward the Northern “Copperhead” rather than toward their misguided
or even their vicious neighbors. They did not consider it a rebellion of
State, but a rebellion of rebels. They knew that they were sustained in
their own section by thousands of Southerners as courageous and
patriotic as themselves, and by hundreds of thousands who, though unable
to give them active support, were praying for success.
Next to their devotion to the Union their desire for peace, good
government in the South through a liberal policy by the victorious party
was the aim and hope of these men. Then came reconstruction and the
reorganization of political parties in the South. It must be written
that the National Republican party, controlled by Northern politicians,
in the exercise of its powerful political influence and the bestowal of
its great patronage, in every Southern State and in almost every
instance rejected the counsel of these brave and experienced men, and
sought to build upon three elements only—the negro, the carpetbagger,
and a few new converts from the Confederate element. This is the only
blur upon the otherwise magnificent record of that party.
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