Alva B. Spencer, Company C 3rd Georgia Regiment
Stationed at Portsmouth, Virginia with Company C of the 3rd Georgia Regiment, Private Alva B. Spencer, a recent graduate of Georgia Baptists’ Mercer University, writes to his friend, “Maggie” (Margaret Lucinda Cone), expressing his feelings of Confederate patriotism:
Many, very many, precious souls have been launched before God’s throne since the commencement of the present war; and if the ‘Abolitionists’ still persist in their ‘hellish’ designs, (excuse profanity) there will be many more on both sides; for one is determined to preserve intact the old ‘Union’. Have you ever for a moment considered the disparagement of principles between the two powers; and still it is only a withdrawal of one part of a nation from the other. It is the strangest circumstance I ever noticed in my life. And also notice the difference of principle in the two sections. The one is a marauding, barbarous, and confiscating set of villains, the other a magnanimous and civilized people …
Speaking of patriotism, I must say there is less in this city than any other of the same size in the ‘Confederacy’. I believe half its inhabitants are abolitionists; although there are some as good southern men, and will fight for our rights as quick as any others; but the majority is of the ‘wrong stripe’ …
In the midst of summer, Spencer and his company are already thinking of the quietness of winter, a time of little battlefield action as the armies will await warmer weather before venturing forth again. Or … will the war be over by spring?
We are about making some arrangements for our winter quarters …. we will be pretty well fixed for a winter campaign. If however we remain in service through the winter, I shall be awfully surprised. I think it is impossible for the Lincoln Government to carry on the war so long, without either money or men, neither of which they can get.
Yet even in the absence of battles as the armies prepare for winter encampments, Spencer worries about death by disease:
Up to this time no epidemics have made their appearance, and I sincerely hope will not, for if death must come I prefer it on the battle field, to death naturally.
At the same time, he doesn’t want Maggie to worry about him:
… I wouldn’t have you to think that I am dissatisfied with my lot. Far from it. I am as well satisfied, and am in as good health as ever before in my life. I came to be a soldier and am contented with whatever happens to me, considering it all my share.
Many other Baptists soldiering for the Confederacy agree with Spencer that African slavery is “civilized” and the concept of racial equality “barbarous.” Countering these southern convictions will lead to much bloodshed in the years ahead, as Spencer’s belief that Lincoln and the United States do not have the will or manpower to fight for more than a few months proves to have no basis in reality.
Source: Clyde G. Wiggins, III, My Dear Friend: The Civil War Letters of Alva Benjamin Spencer, 3rd Georgia Regiment Company C (Macon, Ga: Mercer University Press, 2007), pp. 23-25 (link)
