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Collection Reference Number GLC01896.076
From Archive Folder Archive of Confederate naval operations: Va. volunteer navy, Tredegar Iron Works 
Title Edward Archer to Mr. Newcomb complaining about lack of support for the army, the defeat, the magnanimity of the victors and belief that the South will rise again
Date 25 May 1865
Author Archer, Edward R. (fl. 1830-1917)  
Document Type Correspondence
Content Description Written on Archer's return from Cuba through the blockade around Florida. First half of the letter details his belief that the war was lost because of the failure of the public to support the war effort. "...[I]f the people had have stood by them [the Confederate soldiers] and given them all their aid instead of speculating and quarreling among themselves everything would have gone as we could have desired..." However, Archer expresses his belief that the south will rise again--"...but still there exists a smouldering flame which I have no doubt will one day burst forth and fire again the whole southern mind..." Archer contends that the Confederacy fought not only "...the Yankee and [struck: Negro] Slavery but the whole World!" but thinks that their former enemy has been "magnanimous enough" to the South since the war ended by extending much credit and demanding little. Second half of the letter details the perilous trip through the Federal blockade and Archer's eventual safe return to Richmond.
Subjects Civil War  Navy  Military History  Confederate States of America  Confederate Soldier's Letter  Soldier's Letter  Latin and South America  Caribbean  Blockade  African American History  Slavery  Global History and Civics  Finance  Economics  
People Archer, Edward R. (fl. 1830-1917)  
Place written Richmond, Virginia
Theme The American Civil War; Reconstruction; Banking & Economics; Government & Politics; Slavery & Abolition; African Americans; Naval & Maritime
Sub-collection Papers and Images of the American Civil War
Copyright The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Module Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945