Descripción
Single sheet, 6 3/4 x 8 inches (17 x 20 cm). Old folds. Tanned. Near fine. A rare and remarkable Confederate circular, urging South Carolina planters to donate whatever they can to the cause in the face of devastation wrought by Sherman's March to the Sea. Terming the Union action a "retreat through Georgia" out of either woefully incorrect intelligence or extraordinary optimism, Major George W. Grice of the Confederate Forage District of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida impresses the importance of supplies to the war effort. He writes: "The enemy in their retreat through Georgia having severed all railroad communication with Southwestern Georgia, the largest grain producing section of that State, from which we have been gathering large quantities of corn, the armies in Virginia and at and near Charleston are for the present dependent upon South Carolina for their supplies of this indispensable commodity, and I appeal to you, Planters of Carolina, to come promptly to their aid with an ample supply of corn. "The emergency is great. What you do must be done without delay; and I conjure you, by every consideration of patriotism, of duty, of present hopes and future expectations, as you value all that men hold dear, to put aside every other occupation and devote yourselves and your resources to supplying these gallant self-sacrificing and defiant armies with the supplies necessary for their support, efficiency, and usefulness.Shuck, shell, sack, and deliver at depots, all over the State, every pound of corn you can possibly spare, and thus prove to the country and the world that Carolinians will never falter in the cause of the Confederacy, and that the enemy, by their destruction of supplies and cutting of railways in their retreat through Georgia, have only determined a brave people to make extra exertions to successfully baffle all their designs." The circular is dated November 30, 1864, about halfway through Sherman's March. By this time the army had penetrated deep into the state, torching fields and severing rail lines, but had yet to reach Savannah. Parrish & Willingham note only this copy, which was sold at auction in 1986, and OCLC otherwise records only a single copy, at the University of South Carolina. A rare document illuminating the panicked reaction of the southeastern Confederacy to the Union's infamous scorched-earth campaign. PARRISH & WILLINGHAM 1296. OCLC 758865041. N° de ref. del artículo WRCAM58653
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