"Let Us Fight For The Whole," Such Men Said,
And Probably Do Say.
"To lose anything is to lose all!"
But the citizens of the States who speak and think thus, though they
may be the most loyal, are perhaps not politically the most wise.
And I am inclined to think that that defiant claim of every star,
that resolve to possess every stripe upon the banner, had become
somewhat less general when I was leaving the country than I had
found it to be at the time of my arrival there. While things were
going badly with the North, while there was no tale of any battle to
be told except of those at Bull's Run and Springfield, no Northern
man would admit a hint that secession might ultimately prevail in
Georgia or Alabama. But the rebels had been driven out of Missouri
when I was leaving the States, they had retreated altogether from
Kentucky, having been beaten in one engagement there, and from a
great portion of Tennessee, having been twice beaten in that State.
The coast of North Carolina, and many points of the Southern coast,
were in the hands of the Northern army, while the army of the South
was retreating from all points into the center of their country.
Whatever may have been the strategetical merits or demerits of the
Northern generals, it is at any rate certain that their apparent
successes were greedily welcomed by the people, and created an idea
that things were going well with the cause.
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