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 i%0. 1. I 
 
 Having been assigned to tlie charge of the defense of that part of 
 the Valley of the Mississippi, which is embraced within the boundaries 
 of Department No. 2, I liereby assume command. All officers on duty 
 within the limits of said Department will report accordingly. 
 
 In assuming this very grave res})onsibility the General in command 
 is constrained to declare his deep and long settled conviction that the 
 war in which we are engaged, is one not warranted by reason or any 
 necessity, political or social, of our existing condition, but that it is 
 indefensible and of unparalelled atrocity. We have protested, and do 
 protest, that all we desire is to be let alone, to repose in quietness 
 under our own vine and our own fig tree. We have souglit and only 
 sought, the undisturbed enjoyment of the inherent and tlie indefeasible 
 right of self-government— a riglit which freemen can never relinquish 
 and which none but tyrants could ever seek to wrest from us. Those 
 with whom we have been lately associated in the bonds of a pretended 
 fraternal regard have wished and endeavored to deprive us of this, our 
 great birthright as American freemen. Nor is this all : they have 
 sought to deprive us of this inestimable right by a merciless war, which 
 can attain no other possible end than the luin of fortunes and the 
 destruction of lives, for the subjugation of Christian freemen is out of 
 the question. 
 
 A war which has tluis no motive except lust or hate, and no object 
 except ruin and devastation, under the shallow pretense of the restora- 
 tion of the Union, is surely a war against heaven as well as a war 
 against earth. Of all the absurdities ever enacted, of all tJie hypocri- 
 cies ever practiced, an attempt to restore a union of minds, and hearts, 
 and wills, like that which once existed in North America, by the rav- 
 ages of fire and sword, are assuredly among the most prodigous. As 
 
sure as there is a righteous Ruler of the Universe, such a war must, end 
 in disaster to those by •wliom it was inaugurated, and by whom it is 
 now prosecuted with circumstance? ofbarbarity wliich it was fondly be- 
 lieved would never more disgrace the annals of a civilized people. 
 Numbers may be against us. but the battle is not always to the strong. 
 Justice Avill criumph, and au earnest of this triumph is Jilrejidy beheld 
 in the mighty uprising of the whole Southern heart. Almost as one 
 Tuan this [,Teat section comes to the rescue, resolved to perish rather 
 than yield to the oppressor, who, in the name of Freedom, yet under 
 the primf: inspiration of an infidel horde, seek to reduce eight millions 
 of freem<m to abject bondage and subjugation. All ages and condi- 
 tions a^'e united in one grand and holy purpose of rolling back the 
 desolating tides of invasion, and of restoring to the people of the South 
 that peace, independence and right of self-government, to which they 
 are by nature and nature's God as justly entitled as those who seek 
 l-hus ruthlessly to enslave them. 
 
 The General in command, having the strongest confidence in the in- 
 telligence and firmness of purpose of those belonging to his depart- 
 ment, enjoins upon them the maintenance of a calm, patient, persistant 
 and undaunted determination to resist the invasion at all hazards and 
 to the last extremity. It comes, bringing with it a contempt for Con- 
 stitutional liberty, and the witjiering influence of the infidelity of 
 New England and Germany combined. Its success would deprive us 
 of a future. The best men among our invaders opposed the course 
 they are pursuing at the first, but they have been overborne or swept 
 into the wake of the prevailing current, and now, under the promptings 
 of their fears or the delusion of some idolatrous reverence supposed 
 to be due to a favorite symbol, are as active as any in instigating this 
 unnatural, unchristian and cruel war. 
 
 Our protests. Avhich we here solemnly repeat in the face of the civil- 
 ized world, have been hitherto unheeded, and we are left alone under 
 God, to the resources of our own minds and our own hearts — to the re- 
 sources of our manhood. Upon them, knowing as he does those whom 
 he addresses as well a^ those with whom you are co-operating through- 
 out the South, the General in command feels he may rely with un- 
 wavering confidence. Let eyery man, then, throughout the land arm 
 himself in the most effective manner and hold himself in readiness to 
 support the combined resistance. A cause which has for its object 
 nothing less than the security of civil liberty and the preservation of 
 the purity of religious truth, is the cause of heaven, and may well chal- 
 lenge the homage and Hervice i-f ihc patriot iind the Christian. Tu God 
 ie our tnist. 
 
 ^ ' Major-General P. A. C. S. Commanding. 
 
HoUinger Corp. 
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