Clarke County and the Civil War

Union Sentinel - 18 APR 1863

CAPTAIN DUNCAN AFTER THE COPPERHEADS

We are permitted to make the following extracts from a letter written by Capt. Duncan to his wife: -

It looks distressing to see so many large orchards turned out with no fences around them, in fact you will not see a farm within miles of this place (Springfield Mo.) that has any fence around it. All the rails have been burned up, and many houses have been burned down. Chimneys smoked black are standing as so many monuments of the miseries of this accursed rebellion.

There are any amount of refugee women and children coming into our lines every day driven from their homes by the chivalrous sons of this abominable rebellion, with scarce clothing enough to hide their nakedness, and without anything to eat save what they can beg. There are thousands of rations issued daily at this post, to these refugees who have been driven from their homes for the crime of loyalty to the Union.

O! my God! Can such a cause prosper? - When I look at the monstrous atrocities that the rebels are guilty of I do not for a moment doubt but what God will chasten them and bring their conduct to shame, and it will be a hiss and a by-word for generations to come.

But as much as I hate, loath and despise those armed traitors of the South I consider them honorable men when compared to those copperheads of the North, who, when the bright beams of liberty and prosperity are before their eyes, are so lost to all manly and humane principles as to clap their hands with fiendish joy at every act, however mean and degrading, of their Southern brethren.

Language would fail to express my utter contempt for such demagogues, and in this I am only reflecting the sentiments of every soldier in this regiment.

W. M. Duncan

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