Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1861-05-07
For the Yorkville Enquirer.

To the Volunteers from YORK Dlstr1ct.
GALLANT S1Rs although personally
a stranger to many Of you, yet beinga friend
to all brave hearts in good cause, and
knowing the promptness with which you
responded to your country's call, I address
myself to you as such. Since your depart
ure from amongst US, have been rejecting
with much solicitude upon the privations,
temptations and dangers to which you are
now subjected, and supposing that the emo
lions with which you were severed from
the endearments of home, may lend inter-
est to counsel emanating from your own
District, I have conceived the plan of fur
nishing you through our mutual friend
the ENou1RER-a series Of letters in which
something may be recorded that may cheer,
protect, instruct and benefit you in many
respects. Here let me affirm, that am not
ignorant of the characters Of the men ad-
dress. Making every allowance for the va.
riety that might be expected to exist in
companies gathered from every class and
condition of society, am still fully con-
scious that the virtue, intelligence, wealth,
social status, and descent from an honored
ancestry of York, have large representa-
ton in the troops who have gone from this
District. I will not lose sight of this fact
in anything that may be penued. In the
outset, I declare to you that war, in general,
is a grievous calamity, a catastrophe prolific
in manifold evils. Its origin always implies
sin on one or both parts. See James, iv:l.
As to the exhaustive occupancy and NOR
bid wasting excitement of mind which
possess the people; the wide spread paral-
ysis of business; the decimating of the
population, removing from the country the
flower and strength and hope of society;
the immense expenditure of wealth; the
fearful exposure of health and life, and ir-
reparable detriment inflicted upon the man
ners and morals of the soldiers-accompa
MED by universal prostration Of all pious
energies and religious enterprises. In all
these respects war is an unmitigated evil.
And as to an unjust or unauthorized war
i. e., war designed to Cypress feeblepeo-
pie, or wrest from them dear rights, or
war waged for mere purposes of conquest,
or to avepge imaginary insults and injuries,
or to crafty the ambition of some blood
thirsty spirits-such war, always and ev-
erywhere, involves the most atrocious wick
edness, and is to be deprecated by all right
minded men. But whilst all this is true,
it does not follow that all wars are for both
parties either sinful, unjust, or to be op.
posed. A contest with arms which involves
self.defence, or preservation Of personal,
social and national rights, or vindicatior of
the insulted honor of the nation, or resis-
tauce to invasion or oppression; such a war
is not only justifable, but is often moral
duty which the nation owes itself and the
world. In any such event, where such an
issue is at stake, instead of purchasing peace
at every hazard, or instead of shrinking
back because Of the results incident to war,
it is solemnly obligatory upon the nation to
appeal to the arbitramept of the sword, and
at such crisis, even the faithful soldier of
the cross may exhibit his Christian fidelity
by rallying to the standard of his country.
This position can be established by many
proofs: The natural rights with which the
Creator has endowed all men, and which
they retain when united into nation; the
evils of suffering the tyrant or oppressor to
satiate his lusts in the subjugation Of 9TH
ers; the beauty, honor and excellence of
a nation valianty battling for its rights
and the benefits which history exhibits as
flowing from honorable, just and we'll aimed
wars, all could be adduced as confrmatory
Of a nations right and duty to 90 to war
when its character, honor, property, people
and rights are assailed. But apart from
these lines of proof, the history and lessons
of the wars on record in the Bible shed
light on this subject.
That fully one third of the OLD Testa-
meut should be history of strifes and wars
between nations, and that majority of all
the prominent characters, whose deeds are
portrayed by inspired prophets and histo-
rians should be warriors, are significant
facts. True it is, that the Bible was writ.
ten cotemporaneously y with the ages in
which Hercules, Cyrus, Achilles, Agamem-
non and Ajax lived and performed their
wondrous feats, according to history and
mythology; and hence by its record of mill.