May 11, 1863, The Charleston Mercury
The successive triumphs of the Southern arms have, thus far, served but to show the deliberate and settled purpose of the Northern Government to exterminate the people of this Confederacy, if need be, in order to grasp and retain these unfailing sources of wealth and prosperity, which nature has bestowed upon the South. It is time that our leaders should have done with the sickly sentimentality which has heretofore governed them, in their dealings with enemies, as treacherous in war as they are faithless in peace. We must prepare to meet, with their own spirit, the ruthless vandals who are spreading death and desolation in every quarter of our fair land. The inevitable tendency of a monstrous war like this, is at last beginning to develop itself. We give a significant extract from a letter from Gen. LEE’S army. The writer is a gentleman perfectly trustworthy:
F_______ has just come in. He brings this trustworthy account from C_____, an inhabitant of Fredericksburg. On Sunday the enemy sent a flag of truce to ask leave to bury their dead. They took advantage of that to ascertain our force there, and finding it small, they came over very shortly after, fifteen thousand strong. They assailed Marye’s Hill furiously. Our men fought desperately, killing great numbers, until the crest was reached, when they slayed us, and took the Washington Artillery in a hand to hand fight. The force was Barksdale’ brigade and one or two Louisiana regiments. Next morning these Mississippians and Louisianians met Early, and told him they would follow him anywhere in the world on one condition: He must take no prisoners. ‘Them’s my sentiments,’ says Jubel – and they went at it. They drove the Yankees off the hill, took three batteries, turned them on the enemy, and cut their position. No quarter was given, though the wretches begged for it like dogs. Then they got on the bridge; but still the slaughter continued, our men bayoneting, braining with the butts of their guns and bowie kniving. Finding they could not get over the bridge, the Yankees took up the river roads in despair, our men following […..], when they were met by Lee, with McLaws and Anderson. F_______learns that nearly the whole were killed – not a prisoner taken – unless, perhaps, by Lee’s command, and the whole town is one mass of bodies and brains. Good! Good!! Oh! Good!!! Jubal is said to have been radiant. Stuart, they say, brings in about 600 prisoners daily; and we have a young Yankee army at Guinea’s Depot.