Perhaps the future historian, in calmer moments, when the waves of passion engendered by the late storm shall have sunk to rest, will be better able to answer this question. For the present it is sufficient to record the fact, mortifying, it must be confessed, to poor human nature, that all our quondam friends, without so many as half a dozen exceptions in a whole nation--I speak, of course, of prominent men--went over to the common enemy. The very men who had stood, shoulder to shoulder, with us, in resisting Northern aggression, who had encouraged us with pen, and voice, to resist, if need be, unto the death, who promised in case of secession, to stand between us, and the march of Northern armies of invasion, instantly, and without even the salvo to their consciences of circumlocution, changed their political faith of a life-time, and became, if not straight-out Republicans, at least blatant War Democrats.
The reader cannot be at a loss to account for this change. It was caused by the purest, and most refined selfishness. Next to the love of wealth, the love of office may be said to be the distinguishing passion of the American people. In the hands of a skilful office-seeker, patriotism is a mere word with which to delude the ignorant masses, and not a sentiment, or a creed, to be really entertained. Our allies in the North were very patriotic, whilst there were still hopes of preserving the Union, and along with it the prospect of office, by the aid of the Southern people, but the moment the Southern States went out, and it became evident that they would be politically dead, unless they recanted their political faith, it was seen that they had no intention of becoming martyrs. Their motto, on the contrary, became _sauve qui peut_, and the d----l take the hindmost; and the banks of the new political Jordan were at once crowded with a multitude anxious to be dipped in its regenerating waters!
As the tidings of these doings in the North were flashed to us, over the wires, in Montgomery, it became evident to me, that the Light-House Bureau was no longer to be thought of. It had become necessary for every man, who could wield a sword, to draw it in defence of his country, thus threatened by the swarming hordes of the North, and to leave the things of peace to the future.