My
dear and honored Kinsman,
Your
very sorrowful, kind, and faithful letter of the 20th instant
is now before me. I accept it with all kindness. I have honestly
endeavored to profit by the faithful advice it contains. Indeed,
such advice could never come amiss. You will allow me to say
that I deeply sympathize with you and all my sorrowing friends
in their grief and terrible mortification. I feel ten times
more afflicted on their account than on account of my own circumstances.
But I must say that I am neither conscious of being "infatuated"
nor "mad." You will doubtless agree with me in this,
that neither imprisonment, irons, nor the gallows falling to
one's lot are of themselves evidence of either guilt, "infatuation,
or madness."
I
discover that you labor under a mistaken impression as to some
important facts, which my peculiar circumstances will in all
probability prevent the possibility of my removing; and I do
not propose to take up any argument to prove that any motion
or act of my life is right. But I will here state that I know
it to be wholly my own fault as a leader that caused our disaster.
Of this you have no proper means of judging, not being on the
ground, or a practical soldier. I will only add, that it was
in yielding to my feelings of humanity (if I ever exercised
such a feeling), in leaving my proper place and mingling with
my prisoners to quiet their fears, that occasioned our being
caught. I firmly believe that God reigns, and that he overrules
all things in the best possible manner; and in that view of
the subject I try to be in some degree reconciled to my own
weaknesses and follies even.
If
you were here on the spot, and could be with me by day and by
night, and know the facts and how my time is spent here, I think
you would find much to reconcile your own mind to the ignominious
death I am about to suffer, and to mitigate your sorrow. I am,
to say the least, quite cheerful. "He shall begin to deliver
Israel out of the hand of the Philistines." This was said
of a poor erring servant many years ago; and for many years
I have felt a strong impression that God had given me powers
and faculties, unworthy as 1 was, that he intended to use for
a similar purpose. This most unmerited honor He has seen fit
to bestow; and whether, like the same poor frail man to whom
I allude, my death may not be of vastly more value than my life
is, I think quite beyond all human foresight. I really have
strong hopes that notwithstanding all my many sins, I too may
yet die "in faith."
If
you do not believe I had a murderous intention (while I know
I had not), why grieve so terribly on my account? The scaffold
has but few terrors for me. God has often covered my head in
the day of battle, and granted me many times deliverances that
were almost so miraculous that I can scarce realize their truth;
and now, when it seems quite certain that he intends to use
me in a different way, shall I not most cheerfully go? I may
be deceived, but I humbly trust that he will not forsake me
"till I have showed his favor to this generation and his
strength to every one that is to come." Your letter is
most faithfully and kindly written, and I mean to profit by
it. I am certainly quite grateful for it. I feel that a great
responsibility rests upon me as regards the lives of those who
have fallen and may yet fall. I must in that view cast myself
on the care of Him "whose mercy endureth forever."
If the cause in which I engaged in any possible degree approximated
to be "infinitely better" than the one which Saul
of Tarsus undertook, I have no reason to be ashamed of it; and
indeed I cannot now, after more than a month for reflection,
find in my heart (before God in whose presence I expect to stand
within another week) any cause for shame.
I
got a long and most kind letter from your pure hearted brother
Luther, to which I replied at some length. The statement that
seems to be going around in the newspapers that I told Governor
Wise that I came on here to seek revenge for the wrongs of either
myself i or my family, is utterly false. I never intended to
convey such an idea, and I bless God that I am able even now
to say that I have never yet harbored such a feeling. See testimony
of witnesses who were with me while I had one son lying dead
by my side, and another mortally wounded and dying on my other
side. I do not believe that Governor Wise so understood, and
I think he ought to correct that impression. The impression
that we intended a general insurrection is equally untrue .
. . .