Page:Confederate Cause and Conduct.djvu/42

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22
Official Reports of the

he must not create angry feelings in the master. Although he may not approve of the mode by which it pleases Providence to accomplish its purposes, the result will nevertheless be the same; and the reason he gives for interference in what he has no concern holds good for every kind of interference with our neighbors when we disapprove of their conduct." On the same page Colonel Henderson quotes from the lips of Mrs. Jackson like opinions held by her husband. These are opinions expressed before the war. Do they indicate that Lee and Jackson fought to preserve slave property? I myself know that at the beginning of the war General Lee, wise and far-seeing beyond his fellow-men, was in favor of freeing all the slaves in the South, giving to each owner a bond, to be the first paid by the Confederacy when its independence should be secured; and that Stonewall Jackson, while believing in the Scriptural right to own slaves, thought it would be politic in the white people to free them. He owned two—one a negro man, whose first owner, being in financial difficulties, was compelled to sell. The negro asked General Jackson to buy him, and let him work until he accumulated the money to pay the General back. He was a waiter in a hotel, and in a few years earned the money; gave it to Jackson, and secured his freedom. The other was a negress about to be sold and sent away from Lexington. She asked Jackson to buy her, which he did, and then offered to let her work as the man had done and secure her freedom. She preferred to stay with the General and his wife as a slave, and was an honest, faithful, and affectionate servant. General Joseph E. Johnston never owned a slave. How much of the fighting spirit and purpose of the South was in the breast of Lee, Johnston, and Jackson? Do the facts recited indicate that the desire to retain slave property gave them nerve for the battle? Does any man living know of a soldier in this State who was fighting for the negro or his value in money? I never heard of one. The Stonewall Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia, was a fighting organization. I knew nearly every man in it, for I belonged to it for a long time; and I know that I am within proper bounds when I assert that there was not one soldier in tliirty who owned