[Had Mr. Wigfall been able at this time to look four years into the
future and behold the downfall of the Southern Rebellion, the
flight of its Chieftains, and the capture of Jefferson Davis while
endeavoring to escape, with his body enclosed in a wrapper and a
woman's shawl over his head, as stated by Lieutenant-Colonel Stuart
of Jefferson Davis's Staff, p. 756, vol. ii., Greeley's American
Conflict--he would hardly have retailed this slander.]
"I look for nothing else than that the Commissioners from the
Confederated States will be received here and recognized by Abraham
Lincoln. I will now predict that this Republican Party that is going to
enforce the Laws, preserve the Union, and collect Revenue, will never
attempt anything so silly; and that instead of taking Forts, the troops
will be withdrawn from those which we now have. See if this does not
turn out to be so, in less than a week or ten days."
In the same insulting diatribe, he said: "It is very easy for men to
bluster who know there is going to be no danger. Four or five million
people living in a territory that extends from North Carolina down to
the Rio Grande, who have exports to above three hundred million dollars,
whose ports cannot be blockaded, but who can issue letters of marque and
reprisal, and sweep your commerce from the seas, and who will do it, are
not going to be trifled with by that sensible Yankee nation.
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