"I was a soldier in Virginia in the campaigns of Lee and Jackson, and I declare I never met a Southern soldier who drawn his sword to perpetuate slavery. Nor was the dissolution of the Union or the establishment of the Southern Confederacy the supreme issue in the mind of the Southern soldier. What he had chiefly at heart was the preservation of the supreme and sacred right of self-government. The men who made up the Southern armies were not fighting for their slaves when they cast all in the balance—their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor—and endured the hardships of the march and the camp and the perils and sufferings of the battle field. Besides, it was a very small minority of the men who fought in the Southern armies who were financially interested in the institution of slavery."
Rev. Randolph H. M’Kim, D. D., LL. D., Washington, D. C.