Lieutenant-General Polk's order on Assuming command in Mississippi.
While it is a cause of regret that we are to lose the services of so experienced an officer, whose high military qualities have so long given a feeling of security to the Department, and commanded the confidence of the troops, yet as these services are to be transferred to a more important field, we shall all without doubt submit to the sacrifice with cheerful acquiescence.
In taking charge of the Department, the Lieutenant-General commanding is not insensible to the importance of the duties devolved upon him, or the difficulties by which he is surrounded.
The extent of the territory embraced in the command; its geographical position, its seaports, its river coast, its resource in men and material—still untouched and available—constitute it a field of the highest importance to the Confederacy in its military aspect.
Its difficulties and embarrassments, whatever they may be, are not inherent nor insurmountable. Chargeable mainly to the fortunes of war, they are to be regarded as trials of our fidelity to the cause we have espoused, and tests of the sincerity and depth and earnestness of our devotion to its final triumph. Reverses as well as successes are the allotments of war. Let us hope that the future may be more generous than the past. And when we consider the high soldierly qualities of the army belonging to this command, and call to mind the lofty traits of character which have ever distinguished the population comprised within its limits, we cannot but feel that the [230] time has come when for us there is to be a more favorable turn of the wheel of fortune. We may, nevertheless, remember that it was a maxim among the religion of the heathen that the gods helped those who helped themselves—a maxim which the teachings of a purer and truer faith have served to confirm and establish.
Our cause is not less the cause of truth, of honor, and of God, now than it was the first day we took up arms against the barbarous horde of fanatics and of Puritan and German infidels who have for three years sought to despoil us of our political rights, rob us of our property, destroy our social life, and overturn and crush our altars. The hate of these men has not been abated by the plunder and desolation and bloodshed upon which it has fed, but has rather been deepened and intensified. From them, should they succeed, we are to expect nothing but universal confiscation of our property, abject social degradation or death.
The Lieutenant-General commanding, therefore, confidently trusts that under a sense of such a hopeless future, the inspiration of our just cause, and the encouragement and example of our noble women, who everywhere regard our invaders with loathing and abhorrence, all past grievances among ourselves, real or supposed, may be forgotten; and while the gallant men who compose our army in the field will resolve afresh to renew their vows of undying resistance to our enemy, those who have not yet taken up arms will come forward promptly to swell the ranks of our battalions, and share with their countrymen the duty and the honor of breaking the power of the oppression. The vigorous employment of our own resources, with unity, harmony, and an unflinching determination to be free, cannot, under God, but crown our efforts with triumphant success.
