Preparations for War
This letter serves as a prime example of Thomas Jackson’s willingness to bluntly challenge individuals or groups that he did not agree with. He held firebrand beliefs opposing not just slavery but also all racial oppression and he did not shy away from vividly stating his opinions.
The history of the white man in America is one long tale of terrible outrage & murderous cruelty and oppression of other races of men.
The fact that he had an excellent command of language is something that we can appreciate as we read his letters but his insistence on bluntly express his views probably contributed to his business twice being burnt down by arsonists later in his life.
Preparations for war near Yorktown, VA 1862. See this detailed view of the cannons, cannon balls, horses and wagons offloaded by Union forces from their ships and readied for McClennan’s Penninsular campaign. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2012649803/
Reading October 12. 1862 (Extract)
Dear Cousin
I receive’d the “Pioneer” with the article in that I had written for it, and am much obliged to you for the kind attention to my request.
We had a very exciting time here about a month ago owing to bad generalship & villainous jealousies among our Union leaders, our army got beat in Virginia & had to fall back behind the fortifications near Washington. The whole rebel army then passed to the Northwest of Washington to Leesburg & from thence crossed the Potomac river into Maryland with the avowed determination of going from there into Pennsylvania. Maryland is a narrow state in the western part & not 40 miles wide where the rebels entered it, & then they would be in Penna & only about l00 miles west of Reading.
You may well suppose what a stir there was here when it was known that two hundred thousand well armed & blood thirsty traitors were so near & in full march upon us, threatening to “Burn & destroy all they could & kill every living thing they met with”. such was the threats of their leaders & fully responded to by their whole crew of scoundrels. But all the people of Penna flew to arms & such a time I never saw. Organizing companies & regiments every where. Every family the females were making knapsacks, haversacks & preparing the straps & blankets for the men, while the men were cleaning muskets, single & double barrel shot guns & all the boys casting bullets & making cartridges.
Reading equipped a thousand men in three days & in 4 days the state turned out 80 thousand armed & organized men, who were all at and beyond Harrisburg in a week & before the rebels reached our border line. Had they come into Penna we should have raised two hundred thousand more men & the states east of us were preparing to send on more than five hundred thousand men. Our union army at Washington, largely reinforced from the last call of 300 thousand volunteers, moved up the Potomac & into Maryland after them, by slow marches. giving the Rebels plenty of time to cross into Penna & reach Harrisburg if they had dared to do it. But during over a week of slow marching, sometimes only 3 to 5 miles a day, & receiving large reinforcements all the time the union army was coming after them. The rebels were afraid to enter Penna with a large army coming up behind them and an immense force accumulating in front. So they concluded to try to beat the union army behind them again first. But they made a mistake, & after about 4 days of hard fighting, they were driven across the Potomac river again into Virginia with a loss of killed, wounded and prisoners.
Two of my men of the ropewalk had entered the volunteers sometime before and were both in that battle. Wm Tarbit was one & he escaped unhurt. John Britton was the other & he was hit with two balls and killed dead on the spot. Nearly 20 men from Reading were killed in that battle most of whose bodies were brought home to their families & buried here. John Britton was brought on & all hands from the walk attended his funeral.
Embalming the Dead in the field. Dr Bunnell “Free from Odor and Infection”. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division www.loc.gov/pictures/item/cwp2003004872/PP/
Embalming the dead is a regular business in the American armies in this war. Thousands of bodies are taken home by rail road, some as far as five or six hundred miles, and buried by their relatives & friends in the family grave yards. The melancholy processions are often seen, with the star spangled banner spread over the coffins. Those sights, and the stories of the thousands of wounded and cripples that come back to the north is gradually but surely exasperating the Unionists up to the point of abolishing slavery and arming the blacks against their rebel masters. The traitors have now fair warning; that if they do not lay down their arms by Jany. l. 1863. slavery will be abolished in all rebellious states and districts. They are smarting and cursing under the threat. But I most devoutly pray that they may continue obstinate as ever & in the interim exasperate the north still more. That is now the only hope for freedom every were [where] in the United states. For then whites and blacks will combine & the slave holder be a slave holder no more. If he does not then submit he will be exterminated root & branch. It is a terrible alternative for the traitors. But it is also a most terrible schooling for the Unionists. They richly deserve it. Without it they would never have given freedom to the slave, nor accorded the common rights of man to the negroes.
I have seen labourers at work in Europe for ten pence a day & living on potatoes & buttermilk, & poorly clad in the coarsest of garments & miserably oppressed every way. Yet, when those same men manage to get to America, & find a class lower still & more degraded than they ever were, they, in 99 cases out of a hundred, join the ultra proslavery party and are as ready to ride rough shod over the poor negro as any body, although they may never be worth half enough to buy a black womans baby. Such is poor human nature.
The history of the white man in America, is one long tale of terrible outrage & murderous cruelty and oppression of other races of men. While constantly prating about his own patriotism, his great love of freedom & the his vast appreciation of his own rights he has been, in the mass, the bloodiest and most unprincipled despot, known in history.
When North America was first settled by white men it had a population of about ten millions of red men or Indians as they are called, but no negroes or blacks. As the whites increased & became numerous & powerful, they made war on the red man & tried to reduce him to slavery. But the brave Indian was used to roaming his native forests free, as the game he hunted & preferring death to bondage.
Embalming a soldier. Library of Congress,. Prints and Photographs Division www.loc.gov/pictures/item/cwp2003001042/PP/
So the white man imported the black from Africa. Because the negro is docile, patient, long suffering, more amiable and faithful, than otherwise he could be enslaved. And so he has been increased and multiplied, until this free nation has four millions of slaves in fifteen states of the union. But the noble and brave indian, loving liberty dearer than life, has been nearly exterminated. His numbers being reduced from ten millions to about five hundred thousand. Most All of this enormous wrong doing has been the work of the slave holders and their especial political friends and allies, the Democrats. Or demagogues I should say. The rank and file of that party are generally honest and believe themselves right. They never know, or believe a hundredth part of the rascality practiced by their leaders and politicians, although it is so plain and so well known to the intelligent and reading portion of the people. But unfortunately in a democracy, that reading thinking, intelligent & reflecting portion of the people are not a majority of the voters. I much fear they never will be.
This fact is well known to all unprincipled & time serving politicians. They found that out in America 60 years ago. They have presumed upon the ignorance and illiberal prejudices of the majority of the people ever since the election of Thomas Jefferson; 3rd president of the united states; in 1800, and it has never deceived their crafty calculations very much since then. True, the most intelligent party have elected three presidents since then, & now the slave power, professing democracy as a sham, has rebelled against the government, because they lost a fair, and legal democratic election. And although it is licking the feet that kick and spurn them & kissing the bloody club that is trying to knock all free & democratic principles on the head, yet our demogogues secretly sympathize with the rebels, and have just succeeded in getting the people of Penna Ohio & Indiana, three large free states, to vote against the war for the restoration of the Union, and in favor of settling the difficulty by forgiving All the traitors all the crimes they have committed, and giving the slave holders all they may arrogantly demand, no matter how extravigant those demands may be; rather than abolish slavery and be just to the negro.
The fact is, the great majority of the American people seem disposed to suffer everything, sacrifice everything, honour, honesty, reputation, and all safety & security for their own best interests and dearest rights, rather than acknowledge that the poor negro has an equal right to liberty with themselves, or that he has any rights at all they they are bound to respect.
I must now close. With kind regards to you all & hoping to hear from you.
I am
Yours affectionately
Thomas Jackson
Letter from Reading PA dated. October 12. 1862 (Extract from: TJ_letter_1862-10-12
