All such
considerations vanish in the fierce energy of the thorough partisan,
who, without grudging or remorse, casts the axe-head after the helve;
but I speak, now, of men whose sympathies at the commencement of the war
were almost neutral, and who began to suffer in the way above described
before the bias of feeling had time to determine itself. It was surely
natural that the first angry impulses should turn the wavering scale;
more especially when the irritation was constantly being renewed.
Beyond these northwestern counties, in neither inroad, did the
Confederate army advance. I was not much surprised at reading in the
able letter of the Times correspondent, how the Southerners were
disappointed by meeting all along their brief line of march gloomy faces
and sullen dislike, instead of a hearty welcome; for I knew that in the
neighborhood of Hagerstown, Boonesborough, and all round South Mountain,
the majority of the inhabitants were--to use my Irishman's
expression--as "black as thunder."
One glance at the field of the recent operations will show, that the
isolated Secessionists in the southeastern counties could do little more
than pray for the success of the Confederate arms: even detached bodies
of such sympathizers could not have joined Lee, without running the
gauntlet of the Federal forces lying right across the path.
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