Referred
to as a “Rebel brigadier” by his hosts while on a postwar Democratic
party election canvass in New England, Col. Alfred Moore Waddell (Third
North Carolina Cavalry) of Wilmington took the opportunity to learn more
about Vermont society and its peculiar institutions.
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty"
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
A Rebel Brigadier in Vermont:
"Several
occurrences which happened in Vermont during the [Winfield Scott
Hancock for president] canvass afforded such good opportunities for
reply to the charge of lawlessness and barbarism which Republican
orators and newspapers so delighted to bring against the Southern
people, that it would have been almost impossible not to take advantage
of them.
One
was the stripping naked and tarring of a frail woman, whose mode of
life did not suit the ideas of the brave and chivalrous men who lived in
her neighborhood, and who took that method of manifesting their
virtuous wrath and indignation against her. Another was the murder of a
little orphan girl, who was taken out at night by the woman with whom
she lived and her son, and was compelled by them to take a large
quantity of strychnine against her piteous protest. She died in horrible
convulsions, and was left like a dead dog near the highway.
To
the rising generation [of Vermont] . . . the history of slavery in this
country, as a social and political fact, is very imperfectly known . . .
The general idea seems to be that the inhabitants of the South were
always a horrible race of people, who enslaved and tortured the poor
Negro, and finally, without the least excuse or provocation, engaged in a
treasonable conspiracy to destroy the government, made war on it, and
after four years were conquered by the superior valor of the Republican
party, who have been the principal sufferers, but who have, with
unspeakable magnanimity, forgiven the great crime, and are struggling to
do the criminals good continually in spite of their shameless
ingratitude, which is quite a heavenly frame of mind to be in, but
somewhat delusive."
(Some Memories of My Life, Alfred Moore Waddell, Edwards & Broughton Printing Company, 1908, pp. 183-186)
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