So many of the men have gone AWOL, that I also long for the comforts of family and home. I also hear that Governor Joseph Brown has done quite a bit for the womenfolk of Georgia, by taxing slaves to appropriate funds for people like us. I hope that these measures have affected the ones I love, not merely idle talk from politicians. I heard from another yeoman that Congress has decided to levy an agricultural tax, which allegedly really affects people like us. Well, a few minutes ago I was happy to find out that Smith was not except from military service for free, yet now I find out again that it is really the farmers and their families who bear the brunt of the new agricultural taxes, and hence the war.
Slaveholders are exempt yet again.
Jane, it is inequalities like these that have opened my eyes to the way that life really is. Like a damned fool I came to fight for the Confederacy, a way of life I never attained, and in all probability never will. Like a fool I left my family for abstract ideals, and now you have no bread to eat. Like a fool I see my friends and relatives die feigning courage, when in fact there is no courage left in us. We are nameless, faceless bodies writhing in agony, while those who truly benefit from this war are exempt from fighting in it.