DESOLATING THE SOUTH

The Richmond Daily Dispatch

Dec. 1, 1862

 

       Wherever the enemy have penetrated the South a scene of desolation presents itself, which might melt any but Yankee hearts. "The land is as the Garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness." Fields stripped as bare as if locusts had presided over them, fences gone, houses burned down, the once opulent and comfortable proprietors driven homeless and fortuneless from their premises; these are the edifying spectacles which great the conqueror's eyes, and are rapturously recorded by Yankee journals. We cannot deprive them of this temporary consolation; but, after all, it is only temporary. They have made some communities penniless for a time, but it is only for a time. They have disfigured the surface of the earth, but they have not destroyed it, and cannot even impair its powers of recuperation.--With the first surrender of Peace, the desert places will blossom again, and, with the establishment of Independence, the most desolate portions of the South will begin a career of prosperity unexampled in their history. Increase, which can only bring beggary to the North, will, in turn, make the South the wealthiest and most powerful nation on this continent. It has suffered like the patriarch John; but, like him, its latter days will be better than the beginning. The war of the American Revolution reduced whole communities to beggary and scourged the face of the earth, but from their ashes there sprung up a greatness which the world has rarely equalled. So it will be with our own country. Our independence once secured, and our ports opened the great staples of the South will give her the command of the commerce of the world. Norfolk will become the New York of the continent, and the Peninsula, now so down-trodden and cheerless, will resound with the hammer of enterprise and activity. Even in manufactures, the genial climate and unlimited water course of the South will build up many a Manchester and Birmingham. Let us be patient and hopeful. A day rich with compensation is coming.