1 November 1861: “The minions of Lincoln are pressing onward…May they be thwarted.”

Item Description: Rev. Overton Bernard calls upon God for vengeance against the Union after a Confederate defeat.


Item Citation: From folder 2 of the Overton and Jesse Bernard Diaries #62-z,  Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Item Transcription:

Friday 1st November-We have met with a defeat at Romney, Virginia, some six hundred of our troops being attacked by five or six thousand Lincolnites and compelled to retreat with loss.

The minions of Lincoln are pressing onward and it is thought they will attempt to invade Virginia and Tennessee from Cumberland Gap.–May they be thwarted.

A day or two since a formidable fleet left Hampton Roads fifty or sixty vessels including transports–it is thought it is intended to make a most formidable demonstration on some point of our Southern coast.

Today has been lowering, and tonight between eight and nine o’clock the wind is blowing strongly and increasing.  For this I feel thankful, and whilst I would not indulge in a spirit of Vengence, I will humbly invoke the Lord who tempers the Wind to the shorn Lamb, to cause His Winds to blow with violence upon a Fleet sent forth by unprincipled and ungodly Men, filled with hypocrisy and cruel Wrath, and who trample on Laws human and divine, in their unholy Warfare–May disaster befall their Ships and their schemes fail.

About Overton Bernard: Overton Bernard kept his diary while serving as a Methodist minister in Edenton, N.C., 1824, and as a bank employee in Portsmouth, Va., 1858-1863.

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