No enemies within or without our borders, and peace established among us forever! Such was our belief. And we wondered that men should get together and talk their dry politics, seeing that General Washington and Thomas Jefferson--two of our Virginia plantation men--had established a government to last as long as the earth, and which could not be improved. Yet they _would_ talk--these politicians--around our parlor fire, where often our patience was exhausted hearing discussions, in which we could not take interest, about the "Protective Tariff;" the "Bankrupt Law;" the "Distribution of Public Lands;" the "Resolutions of '98;" the "Missouri Compromise," and the "Monroe Doctrine." These topics seemed to afford them intense pleasure and satisfaction, for as the "sparks fly upward" the thoughts of men turn to politics. Feeling no ill will towards any tribe, people or nation on the globe, and believing that all felt a friendly regard for us, how could we believe, when we heard it, that a nation not far off--to whom we had yearly "carried up" a tithe of all we possessed, and whose coffers we helped to fill--were subscribing large sums of money to destroy us? We could not, would not believe it. Yet we were told that this nation--towards whom we felt no animosity--brought up their children to believe that they would do God service by reviling and persecuting us. Nay more--that their ministers of the gospel preached unto them thus: "Thou shalt carry fire and sword into the land that lieth South of you. Thou shalt make it a desolate waste. Thou shalt utterly root out and annihilate the people that they be no more a people. Thou shalt write books. Thou shalt form societies for the purpose of planning the best means of attacking secretly and destroying this people. Thou shalt send emissaries. Thou shalt stir up the nations abroad against them. Thou shalt prepare weapons of war, and in every way incite their negroes to rise at night and slay them." Around our firesides we asked: "Can this be true?" Alas! alas! it was true; and the first expedition sent against us was led by a man from the Adirondack Mountains in the North, who in 1859, with a small band armed with pikes, clubs and guns, attacked one of our villages at night.[7] The news of this blanched the cheeks of our maidens, and the children nestled closer round their mother's knee at evening twilight, for who could tell what might befall our plantation homes before morning! The hearts of women and children grew sick and faint. But the hearts of our men and boys grew brave and strong--and would they have been the countrymen of Washington had they not thought of war?