pirates to plunder your unarmed ships.  The truth is, when you robbed us of our part of the navy, we built and bought a few vessels, hoisted the flag of our country, and swept the seas, in defiance of your navy, around the whole circumference of the globe.  You say we have expelled Union families by thousands.  The truth is, not a single family has been expelled from the Confederate States, that I am aware of; but, on the contrary, the moderation of our Government toward traitors has been a fruitful theme of denunciation by its enemies and well-meaning friends of our cause.  You say my Government, by acts of Congress, has confiscated “all debts due Northern men for goods sold and delivered.”  The truth is, our Congress gave due and ample time to your merchants and traders to depart from our shores with their ships, goods, and effects, and only sequestrated the property of our enemies in retaliation for their acts—­declaring us traitors, and confiscating our property wherever their power extended, either in their country or our own.  Such are your accusations, and such are the facts known of all men to be true.

You order into exile the whole population of a city; drive men, women and children from their homes at the point of the bayonet, under the plea that it is to the interest of your Government, and on the claim that it is “an act of kindness to these families of Atlanta.”  Butler only banished from New Orleans the registered enemies of his Government, and acknowledged that he did it as a punishment.  You issue a sweeping edict, covering all the inhabitants of a city, and add insult to the injury heaped upon the defenseless by assuming that you have done them a kindness.  This you follow by the assertion that you will “make as much sacrifice for the peace and honor of the South as the best-born Southerner.”  And, because I characterize what you call as kindness as being real cruelty, you presume to sit in judgment between me and my God; and you decide that my earnest prayer to the Almighty Father to save our women and children from what you call kindness, is a “sacrilegious, hypocritical appeal.”

You came into our country with your army, avowedly for the purpose of subjugating free white men, women, and children, and not only intend to rule over them, but you make negroes your allies, and desire to place over us an inferior race, which we have raised from barbarism to its present position, which is the highest ever attained by that race, in any country, in all time.  I must, therefore, decline to accept your statements in reference to your kindness toward the people of Atlanta, and your willingness to sacrifice every thing for the peace and honor of the South, and refuse to be governed by your decision in regard to matters between myself, my country, and my God.

You say, “Let us fight it out like men.”  To this my reply is—­for myself, and I believe for all the free men, ay, and women and children, in my country—­we will fight you to the death!  Better die a thousand deaths than submit to live under you or your Government and your negro allies!