'Tisn't Natural - There's something wrong with them

NH Civil War Gal

Captain
* OFFICIAL *
CWT PRESENTER
Forum Host
Regtl. Quartermaster Antietam 2021
Joined
Feb 5, 2017
Wait for it - read to the end of the story!

Junius and Albert were still prisoners and even though they had been paroled, no one seemed to know what to do with them, so they were in prison in Atlanta as they were being moved to Libby prison. They sent their calling cards to the editor of an Atlanta paper asking for a local newspaper. This is the response:

“Yankees are everywhere more impudent than any honest race of people can be, and a Yankee newspaper-man is the quintessence of all impudence….The unheard-of effrontery that prompted these villains who, caught in company with the thieving, murdering vandals who have invaded our country, despoiled our homes, murdered our citizens, destroyed our property, violated our wives, sisters and daughters, to boldly claim of the press of the South the courtesies and civilities which gentlemen of the press usually exetnd to each other, is above and beyond all the unblushing audacity we ever imagined…They are our vilest and most unprincipled enemies—far more deeply steeped in guilt, and far more richly deserving death, than the vilest vandal that ever invaded the sanctity of our soil and outraged our homes and our peace.

We would greatly prefer to assist in hanging these enemmies to humanity than to show them any civilities or courtesies. They deserve a rope’s end and will not receive their just desserts till their crimes are punished with death.”


After reading that editorial, the Confederate lieutenant running the prison told the reporters that the editors of the Confederacy were a couple of transplanted Yankees from Vermont, which made him a little suspicious of their fire-breathing rhetoric.

“I’m not very fond of Yankees myself.” the lieutenant said. “I am as much in favor of hanging them as anybody. But these Vermonters, who haven’t been here six months, are a little too violent. They don’t own any negros. ’Tisn’t natural. There’s something wrong about them. If I were going to hang Yankees as a venture, I think I would begin with them.”


From Junius and Albert’s Adventures in the Confederacy by Peter Carlson.
 
Back
Top