Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1866 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IX. REBELS -- RUMORS-RAIDS. Secession orators--Marvelous stories--Escape of Tebbetts and Graham--Weary days--Sick soldiers. It may have occurred to the reader, that I have not acted justly in failing to chronicle the achievements of the men in our region most prominent in the cause of the South. True, they have occupied hut little space on these pages, but they shall remain in obscurity no longer. Yet truth compels me to state that those who raised their voices first and loudest for the secession of the State, and in favor of a Southern Confederacy, were not as lavish of their blood as of their words. By their specious arguments they induced others to peril their lives for what they taught them were their rights, but in very few instances did they prove themselves possessed of that courage they were so ready to applaud in others. Two prominent members of the legal profession, A. M. Wilson and W. D. Reagan, were among the first and boldest speakers on the disunion side. The unwarlike spirit of the people of the North, the boundless resources of the South, the assurance that secession would be peaceable, and the certainty of foreign interfere ence if war should come, pictures of the extension of slavery, the acquisition of Mexico, and the unexampled prosperity of the South, under the new order of things, were the arguments relied upon to decide the wavering and confirm those already committed to Southern views. But of their wealth, of which they had abundance, they gave little to the cause which they advocated with such noisy zeal; and of their precious blood they were even still more careful. They were near the battle-field of Wilson's Creek when the fight began, but when it closed they were miles away. When Price and his...