Hell is Empty and All the Devils Are Here
 
From: bernhard1848@att.net
 
General Samuel Gibbs French was a native of New Jersey, graduate of West Point, and according to Rev. J. William Jones, Chaplain General of the United Confederate Veterans in 1901, “a firm believer in the doctrine of States’ rights, and did not hesitate to cast his fortunes with the South in her great struggle for constitutional freedom.”  Rev. Jones went to state that in his book, “Two Wars,” General French “does not cringe or crawl, “eat dirt” nor make any apologies for the heroic struggle made by the Confederacy for the “inalienable right” of self government.” 
 
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
 
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“Hell is Empty and All the Devils Are Here”:
 
“And now the surviving Confederate soldier returned to what was his happy home. He had faith in the terms of his parole, that he was “not to be molested by the United States authorities as long as he obeyed the laws of 1861.”  And now in adversity, almost naked, with unending toil before him he commenced life anew and went manfully to work with hope for the joy of peace, little thinking of the degradation, insults, humiliations, oppressions, robbery and extortions he and his family would be subjected to during the coming years, caused by revengeful legislation. And now behold him even greater in peace than in war!
 
The plunder obtained by the soldiers of the Union army had so whetted the avaricious spirit of those who had furnished substitutes for themselves, that they were bent on having their own share of the spoils; and the politicians, anxious to ride into place and power, to that end resorted to more machinations than Machiavelli ever dreamed of in his advice to the prince.
 
By the daily trains came men, generally from the Eastern States, in every garb, and they walked along the streets in single file in quest of cheap hotels and boarding houses, and the insignia of their order was a carpetbag, and their interests and tastes—not their sympathy—prompted them to associate with the freedmen, considering themselves just as good and honorable as the “Wards of the Nation.”
 
“As vultures sail in long lines from their roost (countless in numbers) to where the carcass is, so came in the harpies and political adventurers to the carcass (the South) to embrace the colored citizens; and, hand in hand, cheek by jowl, they entered the political arena and filled the capitals of the South. Every officer in the State from governor to coroner was dismissed, and new appointments made.
 
The Legislatures became bacchanalian feasts to divide the spoils of office and increase the debts of the States by selling State bonds to the amount of countless millions. They subsidized everything they could; in short, they ate up or took possession of all that was left after the war ceased; and at last departed with stolen wealth, and the execrations of all the honest people.
 
Perhaps in all the wide world never again will be seen such malignant legislation, and mal-administration of law, such trials in the courts.…idleness of the laborers, immorality taught by men from the slums of Northern cities, thirst for money, howling for office, insolence in office, creating anxiety of mind as to what a day might bring forth.
 
Add to this the formation of loyal [Union] league societies of Negroes, by politicians swearing them to obedience to orders, bands of brothers and sisters, composed of blacks under white villains, to burn our towns and murder the whites, the Ku Klux Klan of the whites for protection, and other kindred vexations and trials that made the South the home of the spirits of pandemonium; so one could truly exclaim with Ariel: “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
 
(Two Wars; The Autobiography of Gen. Samuel G. French, CSA”, Confederate Veteran, 1901, pp. 311-312; 331-333)