Callahan
Posts: 18
Joined: 10/4/2006 Status: offline
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"It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake." - Frederick Douglass "In thinking of America, I sometimes find myself admiring her bright blue sky—her grand old woods—her fertile fields—her beautiful rivers— her mighty lakes, and star-crowned mountains. But my rapture is soon checked, my joy is soon turned to mourning. When I remember that all is cursed with the infernal spirit of slaveholding, robbery and wrong,— when I remember that with the waters of her noblest rivers, the tears of my brethren are borne to the ocean, disregarded and forgotten, and that her most fertile fields drink daily of the warm blood of my outraged sisters, I am filled with unutterable loathing, and led to reproach myself that any thing could fall from my lips in praise of such a land." - Frederick Douglass in a letter to William Lloyd Garrison (January 1, 1846) "We have received no mail for several days and do not like it. A soldier can do without hard bread but not without his letters from home." - Entry in Elisha Hunt Rhodes` diary (March 6, 1865) "I do not pretend to go to sleep. How can I? If Anderson does not accept terms at four, the orders are, he shall be fired upon. I count four, St. Michael's bells chime out and I begin to hope. At half-past four the heavy booming of a cannon. I sprang out of bed, and on my knees prostrate I prayed as I never prayed before." - Entry in Mary Chesnut`s diary (April 12, 1861) "In glades they meet skull after skull Where pine cones lay - the rusted gun, Green shoes full of bones, the mouldering coat And cuddled up skeleton; And scores of such. Some start as in dreams, And comrades lost bemoan; By the edge of those wilds Stonewall had charged- But the year and the Man were gone." - Herman Melville "The Armies of the Wilderness"
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