Dear President Lincoln,

My name is Pauline Beauregard. I am a proud woman of the Confederate States of America. I live in Atlanta, Georgia and just turned fifteen. I recently read the Gettysburg Address in the Atlanta Southern Confederacy. If you think this speech changed anything between us in the war, you are wrong. *My brother Jeb, just turn ten; sent off to war just to be a drummer boy. He was sent away before we had a chance to say goodbye! My brother died fighting in Gettysburg so that the states of the Confederacy could be free. You say “We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.” (Smithsonian, Small Gallery) You only care about your own people! That your nation may live. Not mine. What's it to you if us Confederates leave? We don't want your nation to live, not if we have to be a part of it! I'll have you know, my brother didn't give his life so “your nation might live.” Jeb gave his life to keep respectable people like me and my poppa a chance to continue living and to be free from all your war and hate. If it hadn't been for you, Mr President, my poor baby brother might still be here. You say this war is just a test. Well this test is taking lives. *My poor papa--still out there fighting and Jeb gone, and you and your Emancipation Proclamation that is giving our slaves ideas to run away! How in heaven's name are we supposed to run the plantation without slaves. They ran away to join the US Army along with 179,000 African Americans. (McPherson, page 46). They left me and my mama alone. Papa used to treat 'em fair. Gave 'em food and shelter. If they did wrong, they got whipped, as they should. The punishment must fit the crime. *Anyway, my mama and me can't run a plantation alone. With Papa and Jeb gone, we don't have money.

Why bother saying “...and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth...” (Smithsonian, Small Gallery). We were the people and we wanted slavery. None of us have a say in the government, so why say “by the people?” And for the people? If you truly wanted to do something for the people; if you truly wanted the Confederate States of America to join you once again, then do something for the people: end the war. Let us have slavery in your country, or let us secede and make our own country. Bigger and better. Stronger and smarter.

You don't understand. You’re the president of the United States of America. You never have to fight. You never have to suffer. You never have to mourn those who died. Because there is no one who you love who has to leave you and your family, and fight in a war. You are not the one waiting at home each day, alone, waiting for a letter or an article saying that the war is over. I bet you've never received a letter saying that someone you loved died, or that your ten-year old brother just died. War is not fair. All alone here, I just wish things could go back to the way they were.

Regretfully yours,
Pauline Beauregard

* These errors are due to the authenticity of the time period.