The Privates in the Southern army.
We do not believe that the world has ever seen such material as compose the rank and file of the Southern army. Napoleon never led a braver and better set of men. In many respects they are superior even to the veterans of France, for they are animated by higher motives and have made greater sacrifices. They have left comfortable homes, where none of them ever knew the want of one single thing necessary to human comfort. Unlike the troops of the North, they have not been forced into the army to obtain a subsistence. On the contrary, they have entered the army voluntarily, and given up the comfortable subsistence which they were sure of at home for the purpose of serving their country. They have lived upon such food and dressed in such clothes as they would not have given to their own negroes; they have slept upon the bare earth, and been exposed to the summer sun and the winter snows, for the pure and unselfish love of independence. They have not been animated by any vulgar love of glory, by any ideas of conquest, and far less of spoils and rapine. Many of them are men of property, not a few of wealth, and all accustomed to ease and comfort. They are willing to do anything, to endure anything, to dare anything in defence of their country. All honor to their officers, but their officers honor themselves most in honoring their men. We feel no such reverence for any class of men, in camp or council, as for those noble men in the ranks, those noblemen of nature, who are fighting not for fame or gold, but for country, and indifferent whether their names are ever inscribed upon the records of glory, so that they do their duty. But they will have their reward. Their names are written upon the imperishable scrolls of that tribunal which awards such prizes hereafter to virtue in its humbles estate as earth has no power to bestow.
