| OFFICIAL RECORDS: Series 2, vol 5, Part 1 (Prisoners of War) p. 389-390
GOLDSBOROUGH, N. C., March 24, 1863.
Major General J. G. FOSTER, Federal Army.
SIR: Two communications have been referred to me as the successor of
General French. The prisoners from Swindell's company and the Seventh North
Carolina are true prisoners of war and if not paroled I will retaliate
five-fold. In regard to your first communication touching the burning of
Plymouth you seem to have forgotten two things. You forget, sir, that you
are a Yankee and that Plymouth is a Southern town. It is no business
of yours if we choose to burn one of our own towns. A meddling Yankee
troubles himself about every body's matters except his own and repents
of everybody's sins except his own. We are a different people. Should
the Yankees burn a Union village in Connecticut or a cod-fish town in Massachusetts
we would not meddle with them but rather bid them God-speed in their work
of purifying the atmosphere. Your second act of forgetfulness consists
in your not remembering that you are the most atrocious house-burner as
yet unhung in the wide universe. Let me remind you of the fact that you
have made two raids when you were weary of debauching in your negro harem
and when you knew that your forces outnumbered the Confederates five to
one. Your whole line of march has been marked by burning churches, school-houses,
private residences, barns, stables, gin-houses, negro cabins, fences in
the row, &c. Your men have plundered the country of all that it contained
and wantonly destroyed what they could not carry off. Before you started
on your freebooting expedition toward Tarborough you addressed your soldiers
in the town of Washington and told them that you were going to take them
to a rich country full of plunder. With such a hint to your thieves it
is not wonderful that your raid was characterized by rapine, pillage, arson
and murder. Learning last December that there was but a single weak brigade
on this line you tore yourself from the arms of sable beauty and moved
out with 15,000 men on a grand marauding foray. You partially burned Kinston
and entirely destroyed the village of White Hall. The elegant mansion of
the planter and the hut of the poor farmer and fisherman were alike consumed
by your brigands. How matchless is the impudence which in view of this
wholesale arson can complain of the burning of Plymouth in the heat of
action! But there is another species of effrontery which New England itself
cannot excel. When you return to your harem from one of these Union-restoring
excursions you write to your Government the deliberate lie that you have
discovered a large and increasing Union sentiment in this State. No one
knows better than yourself that there is not a respectable man in North
Carolina in any condition of life who is not utterly and irrevocably opposed
to union with your hated and hateful people. A few wealthy men have
meanly and falsely professed Union sentiments to save their property and
a few ignorant fishermen have joined your ranks but to betray you when
the opportunity offers. No one knows better than yourself that our people
are true as steel and that our poorer classes have excelled the wealthy
in their devotion to our cause. You knowingly and willfully lie when
you speak of a Union sentiment in this brave, noble and patriotic State.
Wherever the trained and disciplined soldiers of North Carolina have met
the Federal forces you have been scattered as leaves before the hurricane.
In conclusion let me inform you that I will receive no more white
flags from you except the one which covers your surrender of the scene
of your lust, your debauchery and your crimes. No one dislikes New
England more cordially than I do, but there are thousands of honorable
men even there who abhor your career fully as much as I do.
Sincerely and truly, your enemy,
D. H. HILL,
Major-General, C. S. Army.  |
