Rather The Rivers Be Filled With Blood

From:  The Secret Eye, The Journal of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas  1848-1889.

Thomas was the daughter of a wealthy planter in Georgia who married a Princeton graduate, Jefferson Thomas.

Saturday, July 13, 1861

. . . .Indeed we are now in the midst of what all of us have read of -- thought of --and dreamed of before, but never realised -- A revolution -- There are very many I very much fear who do not realise it now.  Are not fully awake to the importance of the crisis that is upon us.  This war has been forced upon us without reason, without law or pretext unless it is to force us to a state of vassalage -- and shall we submit to this?  As Mr. [Alexander] Stephens remarked in his cotton produce loans speech in Augusta a few days ago -- "Rather that all the rivers should be filled with blood and every mountain top covered with the bleached bone of our countryman than submit to them." . . .

A Southern Belle, from Harpers Weekly,