“Not for honor and glory, certainly. War is a dirty business and I do not like dirt. I am not asoldier and I have no desire to seek the bubble reputation even in
the cannon’s mouth. Yet, here Iam at the wars—whom God never intended to be other than a studious country gentleman. For ,Melanie, bugles do not stir my blood nor
drums entice my feet and I see too clearly that we havebeen betrayed, betrayed by our arrogant Southern selves, believing that one of us could whip adozen Yankees,
believing that King Cotton could rule the world. Betrayed, too, by words and catchphrases, prejudices and hatreds coming from the mouths of those highly placed,
those men whomwe respected and revered—‘King Cotton, Slavery, States’ Rights, Damn Yankees.’
“And so when I lie on my blanket and look up at the stars and say ‘What are you fighting for?’
think of States’ Rights and cotton and the darkies and the Yankees whom we have been bred tohate, and I know that none of these is the reason why I am fighting.
Instead, I see Twelve Oaks andremember how the moonlight slants across the white columns, and the unearthly way themagnolias look, opening under the moon, and how
the climbing roses make the side porch shadyeven at the hottest noon. And I see Mother, sewing there, as she did when I was a little boy. And I hear the darkies
coming home across the fields at dusk, tired and singing and ready for supper, andthe sound of the windlass as the bucket goes down into the cool well. And there’s
the long , across the cotton fields, and the mist rising from the bottom lands in thetwilight. And that is why I’m here who have no
love of death or misery or glory and no hatred foranyone. Perhaps that is what is called patriotism, love of home and country. But Melanie, it goesdeeper than that.
For, Melanie, these things I have named are but the symbols of the thing forwhich I risk my life, symbols of the kind of life I love. For I am fighting for the old
days, the oldways I love so much but which, I fear, are now gone forever, no matter how the die may fall. For,win or lose, we lose just the same.
“If we win this war and have the Cotton Kingdom of our dreams, we still have lost, for we willbecome a different people and the old quiet ways will go. The world
will be at our doors clamoringfor cotton and we can command our own price. Then, I fear, we will become like the Yankees, atwhose money-making activities,
acquisitiveness and commercialism we now sneer. And if we lose,Melanie, if we lose!
“I am not afraid of danger or capture or wounds or even death, if death must come MOOC, but I do fearthat once this war is over, we will never get back to the old times.
And I belong in those old times.