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We have read the words of Presidents Buchanan and Lincoln, neither state the war had anything to o with slavery. What did President Davis say?
This is an "unofficial" interview between Gilmore and Davis. It is quite long and I will not post the entire interview here, but you can read it at http://southernheritageadvancementpreservationeducation.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?2011226.post or look up a website that you prefer.
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James Roberts Gilmore (1822-1903) who also wrote under the pseudonym Edmund Kirke, was the author of: Among the Pines; or, South in Secession Time (1862), My Southern Friends (1863), Down in Tennessee (1864) and On the Border (1867). Gilmore published this account of the trip he had made to Richmond in July with James F. Jaquess in The Atlantic Monthly under his pen name Edmund Kirke.
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The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, 1864
Page 372 Our Visit to Richmond. September,
“No, I cannot. I desire peace as much as you do. I deplore bloodshed as much as you do; but I feel that not one drop of the blood shed in this war is on my hands,—I can look up to my God and say this. I tried all in my power to avert this war. I saw it coming, and for twelve years I worked night and day to prevent it, but I could not. The North was mad and blind; it would not let us gov

1864.] 0ur Visit to Richmond. 379

ern ourselves; and so the war came, and now it must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks, and his children seize his musket and fight his battle, unless you acknowledge our right to self – government. We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for Independence,–and that, or extermination, we will have.”