MARCH 1ST, 1865: The Southern spirit, on the other hand, remained unshaken by what was regarded in the North as portents of defeat. Well, at least the Richmond newspapers.
The Richmond Daily Examiner editorialized on March 1: "We cannot help thinking that 'our friends, the enemy,' are a little premature in assuming the South to be at their feet. Their are Southern armies of magnitude in the field, and Richmond, the capitol, is more impregnable at this hour than it has been at any period of the war."
A week later, the Richmond Daily Dispatch expressed its confidence in the Confederate cause by comparing the South's position in the spring of 1865 with that of American patriots in 1781. "In the American Revolution," wrote the editor, "three-fourths of the battles were gained by the British [and they] held all of the major seaports and cities.
"They marched through South Carolina, precisely as Sherman is doing now.... They had the most powerful empire in the world at their back; had the aid of armed tories in every county; they excited blacks to insurrection; a let loose the scalping knife of the Indian....
"What is there in our condition as gloomy, as terrible, as protracted, as the long and dreary wilderness through which they marched to freedom and independence."
But, Still. --Old B-R'er
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