I Will Accept No Commission That Would

You Mistake, Too, The People Of The North. They Are A Peaceable People But An Earnest People, And They Will Fight, Too. They Are Not Going To Let This Country Be Destroyed Without A Mighty Effort To Save It. Besides, Where Are Your Men And Appliances Of War To Contend Against Them?

The War Now Is Away Back In The Past, And You Can Tell What Books Cannot. When You Talk, You Come Down To The Practical Realities Just As They Happened. You All Know This Is Not Soldiering Here. There Is Many A Boy Here Today Who Looks On War As All Glory, But, Boys, It Is All Hell. You Can Bear This Warning Voice To Generations Yet To Come. I Look Upon War With Horror, But If It Has To Come, I Am There.

I Confess, Without Shame, That I Am Sick And Tired Of Fighting — Its Glory Is All Moonshine; Even Success The Most Brilliant Is Over Dead And Mangled Bodies, With The Anguish And Lamentations Of Distant Families, Appealing To Me For Sons, Husbands, And Fathers ... It Is Only Those Who Have Never Heard A Shot, Never Heard The Shriek And Groans Of The Wounded And Lacerated ... That Cry Aloud For More Blood, More Vengeance, More Desolation.

But, My Dear Sirs, When Peace Does Come, You May Call On Me For Any Thing. Then Will I Share With You The Last Cracker, And Watch With You To Shield Your Homes And Families Against Danger From Every Quarter.

My Aim, Then, Was To Whip The Rebels, To Humble Their Pride, To Follow Them To Their Inmost Recesses, And Make Them Fear And Dread Us. Fear Is The Beginning Of Wisdom.