Stories from the Civil War

Letter from John T. Jones to Edmund E. Jones

Dear Father,

. . . I disagree very much with you in your idea of a central republic such a thing can never be, nor if it was practicable do I think that we should ever enter into it. May be that some of the states have been rather hasty, they are fighting for the institutions of the whole South and the South will yet sustain them.

Who would rather be swung on to the tail end of a Northern or central Republic than to be equals in a Southern Confederacy.

The safety of our institutions depend upon our living united; if we are divided where do we look for success. The North has shown that it was unwilling to compromise by the negation of the Crittenden resolutions. By all the South presenting one united front we may yet bring them to their senses but never while they find us quarreling among ourselves and if the worst must come let us all go together where nature would point that we should be. I know you think I am like all the young folks in for a charge without considering the consequences. I have weighed the matter as well as I am able and think that mine is the only safe course. . . .

Letter from Governor John W. Ellis to Georgia Governor Joseph E. Brown

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of two dispatches from you on the 19th inst. the latter of which informed me that Georgia has formally seceded from the Union.

I trust that this event is the beginning of a future of prosperity, peace and happiness for the people of Georgia and my earnest desire is that North Carolina will unite her destinies, by a formal act, as they are now in fact united with the Seceding States. The information furnished by your first dispatch, that a Convention of the Seceding States would be held in Montgomery on the 4th of Feb. next to form a Confederated government, will furnish the occasion of a few Suggestions on my part. North Carolina will not be represented in that Convention, but I trust and believe, will Soon enter into the government which the Convention will form, particularly if it Should be an acceptable government. . . .

Governor John W. Ellis, Executive Department, Raleigh, North Carolina, Jan. 21st 1861

Broadside from State Senator Jonathan Worth Entitled "To my constituents of the counties of Randolph and Alamance"

On the 28th of February next you are called upon, by an Act of the General Assembly, by your vote, to declare whether or not you want a State Convention, restricted to the considerations of our National Affairs; and also, at the same time, to vote for delegates for said Convention, in case a majority of the whole State shall call it. The Act provided that the action of the convention shall have no validity unless ratified by a vote of the people. I voted against this Act, because neither the Constitution of the United States, nor of this State, contemplates any such convention,-and because I can see no way by which it can do any good, and I fear it may do much mischief.

Such a convention is a modern invention of South Carolina, to bring about a sort of legalized revolution. It has been adopted in most of the Southern States. All its original advocates were disunionists. Whenever such a convention has assembled, it has asserted the power to sever the State from the Union, and declare it an independent government. Under my oath to support the Constitution of the United States, I could not vote to call a convention to overthrow that instrument.