"I know how foolish I shall be deemed for undertaking such a step as this, where, on the one side, I have many friends and everything to make me happy, where my profession _alone_, has gained me an income of _more than_ twenty thousand dollars a year, and where my _great personal ambition_ in my profession has such a great field for labor. On the other hand, the South have never bestowed upon me one kind word; a place now where I have no friends, except beneath the sod; a place where I must either become a private soldier or a beggar. To give up all of the _former_ for the _latter_, besides my mother and sisters, whom I love so dearly (although they so widely differ with me in opinion) seems insane; but God is my judge." Now, read the beginning of the manifesto, and see how prophetic were his words of his coming infamy. If he expected so much for capturing the President merely, what of our execration at slaying him? "Right or wrong, God judge me, not man. For be my motive good or bad, of one thing I am sure, _the lasting condemnation_ of the North. "I love peace more than life. Have loved the Union beyond expression. For four years have I waited, hoped and prayed for the dark clouds to break, and for a restoration of our former sunshine. _To wait longer would be a crime_. All hope for peace is dead. My prayers have proved as idle as my hopes. God's will be done. _I go to see and share the bitter end_." To wait longer would be a crime. Oh! what was the crime _not_ to wait! Had he only shared the bitter end, then, in the common trench, his memory might have been hidden. The end had come when he appeared to make of benignant victory a quenchless revenge. One more selection from his apostrophe will do. It suggests the manner of his death: "They say that the South has found _that_ 'last ditch' which the North have so long derided. Should I reach her in safety, and find it true, I will proudly beg permission to triumph or die in that same 'ditch' by her side." The swamp near which he died may be called, without unseemly pun--a truth, not a _bon mot_--the last ditch of the rebellion.