CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTION-In which the author, by irrefragable tes- timony, establishes his claim to the reader's confidence. 11 UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA PREFACE.* THE hour has at last arrived, when the truth, long trampled under the feet of frenzied mobs, must be heard in the South; and when the conservative element of the North, long lost sight of and denied, must be attended to and obeyed. The time when conservative views (Unionism) have been visited with "punishment" in the South, is passing away; and the time when the same conservative patriotism was brow-beaten in the North, is also passing away. The liberty of speech, the rights of personal liberty, personal security, and personal property-these must hereafter remain intact from the inroads of Radicalism in both sections. In this great hour of national purification, it is criminal to advocate the perpetuation of selfish feuds. Unless the factious ravings of Radicalism be quelled, the Union cannot be restored. Radicalism caused our troubles; conservatism alone can cure them! If the cotton-planters calculated on the radical course Abolition has been pursuing,-denying the existence of any Union feeling in the South, and forcing down the throats of truer men than themselves, their own wild doc * Written before the Proclamation of the President, and before the 22d of September, 1862. trines as a test of loyalty,—if, I say, the courtiers of "King Cotton" based their calculations on such a course in the present administration, and if they acted purposely to produce that very effect, then has their rascality been equaled by their skill and foresight, and we must yield them our admiration as statesmen, although we must execrate them as men. Again, if the advocates of Radical Abolition completely alienate the two sections, in order to preserve the Union, then their statesmanship is worthy of the contempt of all history; and their hypocrisy will receive its just reward from the hands of an indignant and longsuffering citizen soldiery! No one denies that slavery is an evil; No one denies that adultery is an evil; But the Shakers, who advocate absolute non-intercourse between the sexes in order to destroy adultery, are not a whit less ridiculous than those Abolitionists who advocate the utter extermination, or provincial vassalage, of the people of the South in order to destroy slavery. They would "make a wilderness, and call it peace." The personal narrative which follows, embraces the record of that Unionist who, although a Southerner by birth, claims the honor of having dealt the first blow against Secession, and who narrowly escaped to tell the tale. While he avoids all allusion to slavery, except incidentally to his narrative, it will, nevertheless, be seen that he considers himself as owing no allegiance to any one institution, North or South, however "peculiar," unless that institution retain its proper dimensions among others. The reader is invited to the following pages, as a chapter in this strange Rebellion, wherein he may learn how "Southern Rights" were respected in Alabama, in the person of a non-slaveholder of that State,-a native of South Carolina, a graduate of the College of Charleston, S. C., and a former law-partner of William L. Yancey,--whose only offense consisted in his being true to his oath to support the Union, and the Constitutions, respectively, of the United States and of Alabama. There are some beings, who, wearing the form of man, consider it the sacred duty of every one to think with the crowd who happen to surround him at the time of his utterances. According to this very large class, which has its representatives in every age and clime, sodomy was right until Sodom was destroyed. The only idea they have formed of Lor, is, that public opinion now sustains his course, and, therefore, they sustain it also. Had they inhabited Sodom, however, in Lor's own time, they would have vociferously condemned the old patriarch as eccentric, and would have been as noisy as the other Sodomites in the mob, which they would have certainly joined, as a sacred duty to sodomy and Sodom. There is another class, who would, to-day, justify the mob of Sodom, as having acted to the best of their knowledge and belief. Another class seize upon an inflamed state of public opinion, to launch upon their neighbors unmitigated evils, on which they fatten and grow great at the public cost. I may add still another sort of human beings, who, availing themselves of a status belli, exasperate the belligerents and the struggle itself, in order to carry a cer tain point by its prolongation. Every new element of vindictiveness and of barbarism, which is added by any cause, even by the defeat in battle of their own side,they hail as a promise of the success of their own fanatical notions. The first class, represented in this unhappy country by the Secessionists of the South, will have neither the desire nor the opportunity to listen to reason until mobocracy shall have received a check from the outraged people of the South. The second, of which the traitors of the States still loyal are an example, have the opportunity, but not the desire, to hear the truth. Because they see around them much to condemn, they discover in Jeff. Davis every thing to praise. They offer but an apology for treason. The third class is to be seen in the perjured leaders of the Rebellion. They seized upon an inflamed state of feeling which they themselves had excited, to bring upon the country a revolution, which they are to ride, they hope, into power and greatness. Under the cry of "Southern Rights," they openly trample upon Southern Rights. The other class-the Radicals of the North-seize upon the belligerent state of the country as a glorious opportunity for the consummation of their cherished plans, and, in order to bring about the emancipation of the slave, deliberately render it almost impossible to save the Union, or close the war. Under the cry of "the war for the Union," they fight against the Union.* I beg pardon,-they do not fight for any thing. They "stay at home in order to shape the policy of the Nation."Vide Fremont's speech at Boston this month (Sept., 1862). Thus, like the Radicals of the South, who, after precipitat |