Mosby, John S. (1833-1916) to Alexander Spottswood Campbell

Washington, D. C.
Mr Alexander Spottswood Campbell,
54 Wall St, New York.
February 25, 1909.

Dear Spottswood:
Herewith I send you a clipping from the Times-Dispatch that has the Columbia prize essay on Lee by a Northern girl that has provoked so much hysterical criticism in the South. In my opinion it is the fairest and most discriminating tribute to the character of General Lee I have ever seen. One ground of objection to it is that it speaks of the widespread ignorance prevailing at the south as an excuse for the toleration of slavery. This is [inserted: s]imply the statement of an unpleasant truth; it is familiar to every body who has an acquaintance with the conditions in the South of that era. I have often said that if there had been free schools at the South there would have been no war simply because an enlightened public opinion in that section would not have submitted to the rule of a slave holding oligarchy. A large majority of the white people were not slaver holders and suffered almost as much from the institution as the negro. My family belonged to the slave holding class. In a letter written a few years before the war General Lee spoke of slavery as "a moral, social, and political evil", and said that it was a greater injury to the master than to the slave. If so he ought not to have blamed Abraham Lincoln for being opposed, as Jefferson was, to the extension of the evil to the territories. It was as much a right [2] and a duty to restrict it as for Missouri to quarantine against Texas fever to protect hercattle.
I do not agree, however, with the writer of the essay that slavery was more patriarchal in Virginia than in the Cotton States. If by the term "patriarchal" she means that slavery in Virginia existed in a milder form [strikeout] and was of a more domestic character from the association of masters and slaves than in the cotton belt where the negroes were driven [struck: a][inserted: i]n herds and hunted with blood hounds like wild beasts, I agree with her: But I think the latter form of slavery was more "patriarchal". If the Bible history of the patriarchs be true they did not conform to our moral standards and if they lived in our day and did not conform to our moral standards and if they lived in our day and did not reform, would be sent to the penitentiary. The Ragged Mountains in the shadow of the University of Virginia have been celebrated in a tale by Edgar A. Poe. When I was a [strikeout] student there the population in the mountains was in about the same condition of barbarism that the Highlands of Scotland were in the time of Rob Roy. There was no more volition in such people going to war than in the pigs they carried to market.
A great deal has been s aid about reconstruction. I went through it all and was as restive under it as anubody; but I did not ru[struck: ff][inserted: n] off to Canada to escape it. I staid at home and bore my share of the burden. When the yoke was removed and I was permitted to share under the Government every privilege of a Union soldier my passion cooled and my reason resumed its sway. The pendulum swung back to about where it was in 1860 and my old sentiments about the Union returned. But reconstruction as the [3] consequence of defeat is what the wise men foresaw and foretold when they warned the Virginia people against secession, ---
"That fatal[inserted: d] perfidious bark,"
"Built in the eclipse and rigged with curses dark"
Some years ago a man in Birmingham, Alabama, was talking to me very bitterly about reconstruction. I pointed to a fine free school building on the opposite side of the street and said -- that building is the fruit of reconstruction. If there has been free schools [struck: o][inserted: i]n the South there would have been no war -- the Southern people would have abolished slavery; and if there had been no reconstruction Birmingham would still be a cotton patch. When I was a school boy the option of free schools was submitted to the people of Albermarle but overwhelmingly rejected, although Jefferson, who was an abolitionist, was in favor of them. I remember the bitter speech that old General Gordon made against them [inserted: He] contended that it was an abolition measure. On that proposition he was right. Slavery and general education could not live together. Another objection to the young lady's essay is that it classes Robert E. Lee with John Hanpden and George Washington; and admits that they were all guilty of treason. I really don't know any body that would not esteem it an honor to be placed in such company. Treason consists in a citizen of the United States levying war against the United States; it is a legal and technical but not necessarily a moral offense. To charge a man with it is no more an imputation on his honor than to charge him with having committed an assault and battery. But treason is sometimes used [4] in [struck: a]an odious sense as a synonym for treachery -- betrayal of trust. George Washington was guilty of treason; Benedict Arnold was guilty of treachery. The world understands the distinction. Nobody has imputed any dishonor to Robert E. Lee. When I hear Confederates deny that they were guilty of treason I tell them that the difference between us is that I am proud of it and they are ashamed of it. Another objection to the essay is that the writer speaks of Lee's having taken "the wrong side" in the war. What she evidently means is that he took the side that was wrong from her point of view. General Lee must have been at one time of the same opinion as he wrote a letter from Texas about two months before he resigned his commission denying any such constitutional right as secession; and on the day he resigned he write his sister that the South was in a state of "revolution" [struck: "][inserted: (] which the secessionists denied)[inserted: ;] and that while he saw no justification for it, yet, he could not draw his sword against his family, his neighbors[inserted: ,] and his friends. He did not justify himself on any theory of State's Rights but simply pleaded his sympathy w[struck: o][inserted: i]th his friends. He did not fight on a theory but a sentiment. It is a great error to hold a soldier responsible for the merits of a cause inwhich he happens to fight; the side he takes is controlled by a power he cannot resist. The individual is no more at such a time than a straw in a cyclone.
At Hong Kong an Englishman once remarked to me how much he regetted the failure of the Confederate cause. Much to his surpise I replied that although I was a Confederate soldier and [5] my family were [struck: s]slave holders, yet I thought that it was much better for our whole country that slavery was abolished and the Union restored. "Then[inserted: "], he said[inserted: ,]" "You admit that you fought on the wrong side." I answered---- "I do not-- I may have fought on the side that was wrong but I fought on the right side" -- that is, the side that it was right [struck: o][inserted: f]or me to fight on." It was as hard for the Englishman as for these critics to comprehend how a man can fight on[struck: n] the side that is wrong and at the same time fight on the right side. It is plain enough to most people. The whole world sees it. It is very common for speakers at Confederate re-unions to say that they have no apology to make for what they did in the war. Yet some of these very speakers asked and got Andrew Johnson's pardon. Nobody ever heard any such speech from me. It is time enough to say so when some body asks me to make an apology. The French say that a man who excuses accuses himself. Why is it that Southern men are all the time pleading guilty when nobody is indicting them ?
Affectionately, Jno: S.Mosby