Letter to Spotswood W. Corbin, 1861

Language:

English.

Scope and content:

Written from Richmond, Virginia. Letter regards a plan to organize home guard.

Other descriptive data:

Richmond

My dear Corbin,

You did right to decline Col. [Ruggles] [ ] present offer, for he had no authority of law to make such an appointment.

If you raise a company you will be mustered into the service as volunteers, and will then be furnished with arms.

So far I have not succeeded in giving practical effect to my place of organizing all the remaining white population in the border & tide water counties into a home guard to act in case of inroads & marauders as guerrillas. I did hope to bring into this organization all able bodied men & boys between 15 & 60. The law opposed difficulties in the way of this, and I did hear that Gen'l Lee who highly approved of the plan is going to carry it into effect by calling them out as militia. What the precise details of the militia organization are to be, I cannot say. But I suppose that as its objects are the same it does not in the main differ much from the guerilla plan. I think so highly of this plan that I have sought to have it turned over to us navy officers looking upon it as the most honorable & useful service that the times offer to us.

This too is I think the best service for you, and for reasons both public & private. It is highly important service and a double duty to the state--you fight for & help to raise bread for the people at the same time. Sallying forth with [sword] in hand today--tomorrow with the pruning hook or sickle. The private reasons are: your whole fortune is imperiled, and it will require all the personal attention and the best management of which you are capable to save you from ruin. I myself being a cripple have to conform myself to circumstances and to accept such occupation as those circumstances will allow. So it is with you- you by leaving home to serve the state now, would probably do it at the sacrifice of your entire fortune- and that you are not prepared to do. The true course and the brave course for you is cheerfully to adjust yourself to circumstances & then do the best you can.

Tom Maury has just called me out with a telegram that his child is dead.

Subjects:

United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Personal narratives—Confederate
Correspondence

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