Letter from Georgia.

Houston Tri-Weekly Telegraph
April 4, 1862
p. 1, c. 3-4

Madison, Georgia, }
March 20th, 1862. }

E. H. Cushing, Erq:
Dear Sir—Enjoying a few days recreation from attention to the sick in Atlanta, and being separated from the comrades that have endured misfortune during the weeks past, I will pen you a brief letter. But I know not what to say—where to begin. Once we were full of hope, flushed with success, and the paeans of victory were heard everywhere throughout our young Nation.—But now how changed! The enemy has waked from his "masterly inactivity" like a young giant, and his successes are heralded from every point. We tremble to look over the morning news, lest some fresh defeat shall be chronicles; and with solicitude we wait at evening, lest other evacuations and losses of military stores and guns, shall be announced.

The war has actually commenced! We are now beginning to feel that it is upon us. We see the magnitude of the work in which we are engaged. Truthfully did Bennet, of New York Herald, speak when he recently said: "In its effects, the most disastrous battle to the South of all the battles of this rebellion, ten times multiplied, was the battle of Bull Run. It has cost the South many thousands of men, and hundreds of millions of dollars which otherwise would have been saved."

We gloried in the victory and it was a magnificent triumph of arms. It was nobly achieved. But from an humble people, struggling for our rights, and looking to God for help, we at once became boastful and self-reliant. It was our own strong arms and brave hearts that had gotten us the victory; it was the splendid generalship of our own idolized commanders that had led north our gallant troops, and made them triumphant. We overlooked the fact that there was a Providence in it. We forgot God in the exuberance of our joy. We felt entirely secure, and laughed to scorn the magnificent preparations of our foe, both upon land and water. We declared he is afraid—he is cowardly; he cannot face Southern chivalry. Ah! there was our great error. That defeat, bitter and humiliating as it was, had learned him a lesson, and right well has he improved it. As one of their Generals said on Green river to a Ranger, when meeting under a flag of truce: "when we get ready, we will come upon you with a jump." Sadly have we realized the force of that saying. Though having special reference to his advance upon Bowling Green through the central route, which we were guarding, yet it has been verified in all his late movements.

Now we hear nothing but retreats, evacuations and advantages gained by our powerful enemy. There is a cause for all this. It comes not by chance or accident. God's providence is in it. The effect is being manifest. We had forgotten Him. We were looking to other sources for aid. Our rulers were anticipating foreign alliances. But these failing and adversity coming upon us from every quarter, we turned back again to that only source from whence all our help cometh. Our people have been praying. They have been looking unto that God in whom our Fathers trusted when the day of adversity was upon them. I feel encouraged for the future. We can with honest hearts implore aid. We are not engaged in a war of aggression, striving to destroy the homes of our fellow men with fire and sword, and bring distress and ruin upon them in every possible [illegible]. We are merely standing on the defensive [illegible] asking to be let alone—our whole object is the defence of our homes, our families, our altars, our property. We can take encouragement in the matter. For when we read the Bible record, it will appear that in all those cases mentioned where God's people have sought and obtained His favor by fasting and prayer, it has been for deliverance from some terrible impending calamity. When were a people more threatened than ours? when has an enemy waged a more cruel, bitter and fiendish war than this we now are engaged in? Hence the assurance if we call upon Him, He will hear us and bring us out safely through all these dangers that threaten our existence as a nation. With Him it matters not what their strength or prestige or courage may be. He can make the winds and waves the messengers of His will and bring us through every battle victorious. Under His protection, Jonathan and his armor-bearer put to flight a whole garrison of Philistines. Gideon, with his 300 picked men, routed a whole army of Midianites. So, too, Jehosaphat was told not to be afraid or dismayed on account of the great multitude of his enemies, "for the battle was not his, but God's." It is true we cannot expect God to work miracles for our deliverance from our enemies, but we have assurance that in answer to prayer, He will, when our cause is just, imbue our leaders with wisdom, make our soldiers courageous, and bring victory to our arms and peace to our people. We have no reason for discouragement. No people ever gained a nationality without suffering and distress, money and blood. We need not expect it. But although their deliverance may seem impossible—the net of circumstances being so ingeniously woven and placed for their destruction thus situated, hope may be dimmed by gathering clouds, yet if their trust be in God, some ray of light will beam forth, even through the darkest and most threatening storm and they will be encouraged to press on till victory crowns their efforts. The history of the rise of the Dutch Republic should teach our struggling States a lesson.

No people ever before endured greater suffering whilst purchasing their liberties, yet they finally gained a glorious name and country. A few defeats should not dispirit us and tempt us to say that all is lost. Look at Ancient Rome. After she had met one of the bloodiest and most disastrous defeats that any nation ever sustained, the Roman Senate returned thanks to their defeated General "in that he had not despaired of the Republic." This same spirit of unconquerable resolution, this determination never to despair of the Republic, brought Rome in triumph out of all her difficulties, and gave her the empire of the world. In this our day of darkness and peril let the example of our fathers cheer us forward. For seven long years they battled on through every difficulty and when Brittain [sic] held all their large cities and commanded their entire seaboard and held the most of their Southern States and when time after time they were defeated and retreated, their army being almost swept away and their cause buried with the brave patriot leaders who had fallen, still there were those who would not and did not yield to despair, who did not give up all for lost and we know the result. Their children's children have long enjoyed the liberties they so dearly purchased, and their names and deeds will live whilst our language endures. Neither in the war of 1812, did our fathers allow disaster and defeat to dampen their hopes or lead them to despair of their cause. For after three long years of struggle, when our Capitol was in the hands of the enemy and some of our cities occupied, and our seaboard was threatened, they forced him to acknowledge a peace. so, too, our struggles may last for years, it may be fierce and bloody, there may be much to discourage, cities may be taken or destroyed, people may suffer every indignity and oppression. God may permit all these things, but our cause will triumph in the end. Our young nation will take her place among the nations of the earth and be honored, prosperous and great. I believe a noble destiny yet lies before her, and her sons and daughters have but to give themselves for the benefit and the victory will be gained. We have recently met reverse after reverse. The "Anaconda" is still tightning [sic] his huge holds around us that we may be crushed.

We are yielding to the pressure. We are evacuating our strongholds and drawing in our lines, thus narrowing and strengthening our defences, and we are thus preparing for the great struggle; yet if we hold steadily and firmly in view the glorious cause which is the object of all endeavor, the goal of our highest ambition, the theme of our most earnest prayers and the consummation of our hopes, who can for a moment doubt that success will eventually crown our arms, and justify before the world the glorious and holy cause for which our Confederacy is nobly battling? No righteous cause, when supported in the fear of God, by any people as numerous as the dwellers in these Confederate States, can possibly be lost, unless abandoned. If we should prove by our acts and our faith that we are unworthy of this noble birthright of freedom, for which we are now struggling, the heritage will not be ours. Then generation after generation of our children will weep over our error and suffer the penalty of our sins. May Heaven forbid it!

In Georgia the people seem fully awake to their duty. Their noble, Christian Governor called for eleven thousand troops and twenty-two thousand responded. Daily, the cars are hurrying them forward to camps of instruction. Everywhere the people are in earnest. No time is to be lost. Trust our Lone Star State may be saved from the unhallowed tread of our insulting foe. We forget not those whom we left behind in the defense of our rights and her soil. I know but little of the regiment since leaving it at Murfreesboro', three weeks ago to-day, on detail duty with the sick.—Have heard that they left Shelbyville, Tenn., on the 14th, for Huntsville, Ala. Rumor says, whether true I know not, that Gen. Johnson has been petitioned to send us to Arkansas. We will then be under Price. About 40 sick were brought down to Atlanta. All are improving now. We lost four since leaving the regiment, viz: Ben. L. Calloway, J. W. Baldridge, A. J. Pouton, and G. L. Guinn. To-morrow I expect to return to Atlanta, and next week join the command. We know not what is before us these days.

Yours, R. F. Bunting,
Chaplain Texas Rangers.

Article provided by Vicki Betts.