Edmund Ruffin, Diary Entry, June 17, 1865

    Source citation
    Reprinted in Eric H. Walther, The Fire-Eaters (Baton Rouge, LA: University of Louisiana Press, 1992), 229-231. 
    Type
    Diary
    Date Certainty
    Exact
    Transcriber
    John Osborne, Dickinson College
    Transcription date
    The following text is presented here in complete form, as it originally appeared in print. Spelling and typographical errors have been preserved as in the original.
    I here declare my unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule - to all political, social & business connection with Yankees - & to the Yankee race.
    Would that I could impress these sentiments, in their full force, on every living southerner, & bequeath them to every one yet to be born! May such sentiments be held universally in the outraged & downtrodden South, though in silence & stillness, until the now far-distant day shall arrive for just retribution for Yankee usurpation, oppression, & enslaved Southern States! May the maledictions of every victim to their malignity, press with full weight on the perfidious Yankee people & their perjured rulers - & especially on those of the invading forces who perpetrated, & their leaders & higher authorities who encouraged, directed, or permitted, the unprecedented & generally extended outrages of robbery, rapine & destruction, & house-burning, all committed contrary to the laws of war on non-combatant residents, & still worse on aged men & helpless women!
     
    And now with my latest writing and utterance, & with what will [be] near to my latest breath, I here repeat, & would willingly proclaim, my unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule - to all political, social, & business connection with Yankees, & to the perfidious, malignant, & vile Yankee race.
    How to Cite This Page: "Edmund Ruffin, Diary Entry, June 17, 1865," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/44174.