Gen. Magruder's Address.
The following address, to the army of the Peninsula, has just been issued by General Magruder. No one can read it without admiration. It has the ring of true metal.--While it is intended particularly for the soldiers on the Peninsula, it will have its effect in inciting others to emulate the example of the patriotic-men who have nobly come forward to continue the struggle for independence:
Headquarters, army of the Peninsula,
To the Army of the Peninsula:
Comrades — The term of service for which many of you enlisted is about to expire. Your country, invaded by an insolent foe, again demands your help — your homes are violated — your firesides polluted by the presence of a mercenary enemy, or silent in their desolation — many of your friends in captivity, or in exile — our people slain, and the very altars of our religion desecrated and profaned.--The ruthless tyrants who have dared to invade us, have vowed our conquest or our destruction. It is for you to rise and avenge our slaughtered countrymen or nobly share their fate. Of what worth is life without liberty?--peace at the expense of honor?--the world without a home?
When our fathers periled life, fortune, and sacred honor in our first war of independence, was it an empty boast, or was it the stern resolve of freemen, who knew their rights and dared to defend them? The long war of the Revolution culminated at length in victorious triumph on these very plains of Yorktown. These frowning battlement is on the heights of York are turned, in this second war of liberty, against the enemies of our country. You breathe the air and tread the soil consecrated by the presence and the heroism of our patriotic sires. Shall we, their sons, imitate their example, or basely bow the neck to the yoke of the oppressor? I know your answer! You remember your wrongs, and you are resolved to avenge them. True to the instincts of patriotic devotion, you will not fill a coward's grave; you spring with alacrity to the death-grapple with the foe, nor relinquish the strife till victory crowns our arms. Cowards die a thousand deaths — brave men die but once, and conquer though they die.
It is, therefore, without surprise that your Commanding General has learned of your purpose to re-enlist in this holy struggle, and that you bear with a cheerfulness and constancy, worthy of his highest admiration, the disappointment of withdrawing from you the furloughs to visit your homes which the Government promised you, and which the present dangers of our beloved country alone forbids it to grant. When the war is ended, in that hour of triumph you will be proud to remember, that by your sufferings and sacrifices, no less than by your valor, you conquered.
Soldiers! though reverses and disasters have recently befallen us, let us remember that truth is eternal, and that God is just. His arm is our trust — and the great Ruler of Nations and of men will protect the right and crown with victory the noble and the brave.
Let us take courage, then. Our enemy, dead to the spirit of Liberty, can only fight while their coffers are unexhausted. Commerce is their King. Their God is gold. They glory in their shame. The war which intensifies our devotion and concentrates our resources, scatters theirs. The day of retribution will come. The struggle will not be always defensive on our part. We will yet strike down our ruthless invaders, amid the smoking ruins of their cities, and, with arms in our hands, dictate terms of peace on their own soil.
