Prisoners Ready to Slay, Burn and Destroy Again
From: bernhard1848@att.net
The stated reason for prosecuting war against the South was to save the Union, but the armed emissaries of reunification sent by the North would destroy any State not wanting to be saved.
Bernhard Thuersam, Director
Cape Fear Historical Institute
www.cfhi.net
Prisoners Ready to Slay, Burn and Destroy Again:
“We understand that a good many of the Yankee prisoners are quite truculent and insulting, declaring that if they ever do get their freedom, they will slay, burn, and destroy in Richmond to their hearts’ content. The immediate provocation of these dire menaces is that they do not always have sugar in their coffee. They need sweetening no doubt, and if they received their deserts, would have no cause to complain of any deficiency in that particular….We are not much alarmed at the threats of these fine fellows. They have been breathing blood and thunder against Richmond for the last three years, and it has all ended at Libby [one of the largest tobacco ware-house prisons in Richmond].
That is the only “On to Richmond” which has been realized yet. We have no doubt that the Yankees will behave a great deal worse hereafter, if that be possible, than they have ever done before. But perhaps we shall behave worse also. There is great room for improvement in our mode of treating these invaders…We are not always going to have our prisoners murdered by inches and our houses burned over our heads without some attempt at retaliation. In the meantime, the sooner the Yankees now here are removed farther South, the better for all parties.”
(The Yankee Prisons, Richmond Daily Dispatch, February 17, 1864, page 2)
