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General,

    We are humble

supplicants & earnestly, tearfully, pray erfully entreat that you will remove from us, the requirement of taking the oath.

    It is not the treasure which 

"moth & rust doth corrupt" that our agonized hearts rebel at leaving, for in this sense, all that was most valuable has long ago, _ in the commence ment of the war been sent into the Confederacy, but we cannot without bitterest deepest anguish leave the homes of our childhood, the scenes of our youth; those grassy mounds oh! Holy Dust how can we give Thee up. _ all that is left to some bereav ed hearts of what made life precious.

    In your dying hour that hour which

must come alike to all, the good, the wise, the Great, as well as to the lowly, this thought will come, that you exercised the noblest gift a perogative of a soldier clemency, Yes this remembrance will

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light the "dark valley, of the shadow of death."

     Taking the oath may be

to us a temptation to assist the Con federates, for Satan is aware of the weak points in human nature & like an experienced General is skillful in knowing when & where to attack; & it is a truth well known to all that when imperatively forbidden to pursue a line of conduct, that is the path we are most eager to follow.

      The Confederates in Williamsburg

as to numbers a mere handful, & will never give information to the enemy.

       Now General please grant

our request, & when the pre_ sent is the past & the record of the war is written & your name entwin ed with the history of your country, that name will go down to the la test of [time?], in all lands & all lan guages inseperably united with a kind act; & a generous action is surely the most grateful tribute we can offer to Heaven.

        We do not present our

petition in our own name but in the name of that precious Saviour who died for us all & has given to us the Divine Evangel, contained in the

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fifth Beatitude "Blessed are the merciful for they shall ob- tain mercy.

       Ladies of Williamsburg

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