SUNDAY
AUGUST 24, 1862
THE TIMES PICAYUNE (LA)

France in Mexico.

If the French Emperor has any wish to withdraw from Mexico, opportunities enough are afforded him for closing the war. The Government is yielding, and its adversaries who invited the foreign troops into the country are shaping their measures so that if the Emperor wills it he can show the best possible reasons for giving up his enterprise, and taking his troops home. The party of Juarez, advised and backed by the agents of the Government of the United States, have tendered proposals for peace, which include satisfaction on all the alleged points for which France went to war; and on the other hand Almante, the prompter of the expedition, and the chief of the reactionary government, is making himself very unpopular, even with the friends of France, by harsh and oppressive measures.

His last and most odious decrees are these two—one levies a contribution of two per cent. on all real estate, city and county, payable in installments within three months, and subject to an increase of 10 per cent., 20 per cent., and 50 per cent. accorded to the delay of payment; another creates $500,000 in paper money, to which a  forced circulation is to be given, and confiscation of goods is to follow the refusal to sell for this paper. Vera Cruz is the department in which the first pronunciamiento was made in favor of Almonte, and the merchants of that place, mostly foreigners, have been his friends. These extraordinary measures have produced great commotion in the city, as the land tax has specially excited the rural proprietors. The merchants met and passed a resolution to close their stores until the decree is recalled; and united in a representation to the military commandant and all the foreign Consuls, in order to obtain a suspension of the paper decree, and the action of the Government annulling it, and protection, in the interim, against the attempt to enforce it. We find the document on the French side of the Bee of Friday morning. It is very perspicuously drawn up on paper, and shows clearly the ruinous and unjust operation of the measure upon all the transactions of commerce. The French Military Commandant replied that he has already demanded of the Government of the department the suspension of the decree, of which so much complaint is justly made, and says that it will not be put into execution without further notice.

The other tax being a mainly internal regulation, is not inserted among these causes of complaint, although it is urged by the land owners as a great grievance. Almonte has thus contrived seriously to disoblige the mass of men if business and men of property; and to show to the Frenchmen, who came with him as allies, that if they wish to succeed in Mexico, they must renounce his measures, and most probably, that to expect a permanent success, they must get rid of him. If France therefore is willing to accept peace from Mexico, her reasons for discontinuing the further prosecution of the war for any of the purposes distinctly avowed, could be made sufficient. Her specific demands for herself will be all satisfied, and her Mexican advisor who promised her a welcome reception by the people of Mexico, as a reorganizer of the government, has proved himself to have been deceived, or a deceiver, and to be a burden rather than a help to French success.

The obstacle in the first place, to this action on the part of France, supposing her main objects to be accomplished by a settlement with Juarez, is the point of honor. The French army has received a check, and French susceptibility to glory will not be appeased without a military achievement. The most moderate men of the French Press, reflecting this sentiment, are cordially in accord with the Government and assume that no terms can be listened to, except with the French flag flying victoriously at the capital. This is a sufficient motive, in itself, upon which the Government can proceed, if they wish, and carry the popular feeling of France with them. It would require some dexterous movement to enable the Emperor to withdraw at this point, and satisfy at the same time the national pride of the French. But if he desired to proceed, with objects other than those which are comprised in the offer of settlement, for political reasons, extending beyond Mexico, the restoration of the ascendancy of the French arms, will be a convenient and sufficient motive for going into the capital, and there determining what he will do with his conquest.

The world at large believes that the French expedition had other motives than the collection of French debts, and the punishment of petty offences against the French flag. These were opportunities for an intervention, which had for its main objects a scheme of deep laid policy, to bargain off a Mexican throne for an Austrian prince, to solve the knotty problem of Venetia for Italy, or, perhaps, to be prepared for a direct intervention in the American war. They will believe that none of these things were designed, or that they all have been abandoned, if peace is made and the French army is withdrawn before it reaches the city of Mexico. Otherwise, the progress of arms will be looked upon as leading to developments, less of what the purposes may have been, when the expedition commenced, than what they will be on the state of affairs as they may stand at the time of triumph.

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New Music.—Messrs Blackmar & Co., 74 Camp street, sends us copies of the song, “Old Cotton is King,” words by Gen. George P. Morris, author of “Woodman Spare that tree,” the music by Miss Delia W. Jones, of North Carolina, and the duet, “The Murmuring Sea,” words by Mrs. Crawford, music by Glover.

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Mrs. J. Donovan, 91 Camp street, advertises in this morning’s issue choice extra St. Louis flour, coffee, cheese, beef, hams, fish, and various other articles in the grocery line.

MONDAY
AUGUST 25, 1862
THE MACON DAILY TELEGRAPH (GA)

“Treason in Sight
of the City Hall.”

We copy the following from that influential German paper, the New York Journal, of Aug. 5th. In publishing it the New York Times calls it “treason in sight of the City Hall.”

“We now have the guarantee that this civil war will be a contest of thirty years’ duration. The order of the War Minister, published yesterday, has suddenly placed us in a military state that other countries have taken centuries to reach. We have enjoyed the fruits of freedom for eighty years; but now see what the black intolerant spirit of New England has done for us. Look at our rapid decline. Congress, with all its thirst for usurpation, did not dare to do what has just taken place. In a single moment, just by the stroke of the President’s pen, we are converted into the subjects of a government which considers the bodies of its citizens as its own property, and claims the absolute right to use them according to its own whim until they are destroyed.

“This is the old European system over again. The President thought he would risk the sudden stroke, and so he did it. What becomes of the opinion we used to have that it was wrong to make men against their better judgment slay others? We are imitating the examples of the worst European governments. By means of this ill-timed order, a million of our citizens are forced into being soldiers—for of even the first 300,000 men, only the smallest share will come forth without conscription. This half million of people are forced into the field without the slightest sympathy with the cause they are compelled to serve. In the course of the year we shall have another call, and the ruins of our volunteer force will be included. This will be a call for a million more of our obedient soldier machines! Does anybody know how many this will be? About one third of our arms bearing population. The “soldier republic” is almost ready; and where there are many soldiers there will be much fighting. If your generation says amen to the conscription movement, we need never expect to see any more peace. It is good for us that we are not yet exhausted, but for that very reason we are very far from peace—for this war only ends with exhaustion.”

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Pope’s Retreat Confirmed.

Richmond, Aug. 24.—The retreat of Pope’s army is confirmed. A guard of one hundred and fifty men were left to blow up the railroad bridge across the Rappahannock an hour after the Yankees had crossed. These were surprised by our men, on Thursday, and captured. There was taken at the same time two splendid locomotives and tenders and five or six cars, which were to have been used by the guard in making their retreat after the work was finished. The situation of affairs along our lines on the Rappahannock is said to be most encouraging to the Confederate cause.

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Yellow Fever at Key West.

Much to our surprise we see it stated that the yellow fever is raging at Key West, and the Federals have all “changed their base of operations” in a hurry. There is nothing about Key West to generate fever. It is a small barren sand bed in mid-ocean, and to the best of our recollection yellow fever was never there except when it swept the whole Gulf coast.

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Baton Rouge Evacuated.

Mobile, 24.—A special dispatch to the Advertiser and Register, dated Jackson the 23d, says that official information has been received here that the Federals have evacuated Baton Rouge and gone down the river.

Retaliation.—We call attention to the correspondence with the head of the Lincoln army in regard to the atrocities of Butler, Pope, Steinwehr and others. It was a happy thought of Halleck to evade a discussion of these matters and the general war policy of Lincoln, on the plea that Gen. Lee’s letter was insulting. That, however, will not save the necks of some of the agents in the acts of cruelty.

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McClellan’s Evacuation.—It may be that McClellan’s evacuation of his position on James river was not altogether in accordance with the plans of the Federal Government for the reduction of the Southern capital. Reports from the recent scene of his operations concur in representing the condition of his army as pitiable in the extreme. Disease and death had decimated his ranks, and it is stated that large numbers were dying daily from the effect of the climate and the malaria of the adjacent swamps. It is possible, then, that the evacuation was a matter of necessity rather than any concerted plan for a “change of base.”—Richmond Dispatch, 20th.

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The Chaplains.—The Philadelphia correspondent of the New York Observer makes some damaging statements in regard to the “shepherds” in the United States army. One chaplain is reported to have “preached” but twice since he entered the regiment. Another took no notice of the privates, but was “very attentive to the officers.” A third “played cards regularly every day, and preached but once, and then to a little squad, a portion of whom played cards during the service.” Many of the soldiers seemed astonished when they were informed, on a certain occasion, that it was Sunday—remarking that they did not know they ever had Sundays in their regiment.—St. Louis Democrat.

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Nitre Bureau.—The operations of the Nitre Bureau are progressing favorably under the energetic supervision of Prof. F. S. Holmes. The first contribution of nitre is credited to Thos. P. Havenel, Esq., of Black Oak, and the largest contribution to Dr. Jos. A. Johnson, of Greenville, S.C., both attached to the bureau. Permanent works for the preparation of nitre will be established near Charleston and Augusta.—Charleston Courier.

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The Apple Crop promises to be very large this year throughout the South. A gentleman from Habersham informs us that there is a great abundance of this fruit ripening in that country. What, with Georgia and North Carolina to furnish us, our market ought to be well supplied with apples this fall.—Chron. & Sen.

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A New Orleans Item.—Lieut. D’Apreumons, a Southern officer from New Orleans, having been taken prisoner by the Yankees, was being conveyed through the streets of that city to the parish Prison. He was marching along barefooted, under guard, when two of his civilian friends procured a pair of shoes and handed them to him. For this act of mercy they were arrested and the Beast sent one of them to the Parish Prison for two months, and the other for six months. “Go on, Butler, go on!” Your time will come.

TUESDAY
AUGUST 26, 1862
THE BOSTON DAILY ADVERTISER

State of Affairs in Richmond.

The New York Times publishes an account of the state of affairs in Richmond, obtained from a highly respectable lady who has resided in that city for the past two years. From this account, which the Times says may be relied upon as authentic, we make the following extracts of special interest:

“There were never so many human beings in that city before as when she left, but a great proportion of those within the limits of the town are sick and wounded soldiers. The hospitals may be counted by hundreds. She has been in the daily habit, for months past, of going to minister to the sick and wounded. All the ladies in the city did this—the wealthy and high-born, the poor and lowly, all seemed to try their utmost to alleviate the sufferings of the Confederate soldier. Our informant says she performed her labors from motives of pity for the poor fellows; but if she had been possessed of no feelings of humanity for them, she thinks she would have done something as a matter of policy, inasmuch as if any woman was found to be lukewarm in the cause, she was immediately suspected and closely watched. Business matters are not thought of, except so far as they tend to the solution of this problem. Famine is staring them in the face, and disease, in the form of a slow fever of the typhoid character, is wasting the army and carrying off daily scores of soldiers and others in the city. The army in and about the capital has been for the last two months upon half-rations, and a sight of the forms of the half-fed, half-clad soldiery is, as she represents it, a pitiable and disgusting spectacle. No attention whatever has, for months, been paid to the sanitary condition of the city.

“The whole atmosphere in and around the city, she represents as highly charged with this horrible malaria, and, to use her own expression, ‘the air seems thick with disease, and heavily laden with death.’ Every tobacco warehouse—and the city is full of them—is used either as a hospital or a prison. In addition to these, a very large number of wholesale stores and other buildings have, since the week’s battle in front of the city, been appropriated to the use of the sick and wounded. Very little business of any kind is transacted, and none whatever after 2 p.m. At that hour all the stores and shops are closed, and every male able to bear arms, and even many of the females, go to drill.

“Food is very scarce and very high. For three months past, no citizen, however wealthy, has been able to procure a particle of fresh meat of any kind; what little of that article could be obtained was given to the sick soldiers. The only vegetables which our informant has seen there since the beginning of June, were a few half-grown cabbage heads, all of which were readily sold for the sum of $2.50 each.

“Our informant is strong in the conviction that the rebels, to use her language, are fearfully, terribly in earnest, in the prosecution of this war. From all that she has seen and heard during her sojourn among them, it is her belief that nothing less than the utter extermination of the leaders of this rebellion will ever bring them to submit to the good old government.

“Our informant has often seen Jeff. Davis. For months he had his headquarters directly opposite her residence, across the Green, (a narrow park.) She has been accustomed to hear him at his morning and evening devotions. He is represented as a man of many long prayer, which, although they are uttered in a loud voice, she does not think that, Pharisee-like, he thus worships to be seen and heard by men. He is a prominent member of the Episcopalian Church, and, aside from the treasonable course which he has pursued in this rebellion, she regards his daily life as entirely in accordance with the principles of the Christian religion.

“As to the magnitude of the rebel army in and around Richmond, she says she can form but little idea. She can only describe it as being large—beyond all her previous ideas of a great army. But she is quite sure that, unless they take women and Negroes, they have raised almost their last recruit. For days and weeks prior to the week’s battle before that city, every man, woman and child there believed that that was the turning point in their fortunes—if defeated, then their cause was hopelessly lost; if victorious, their independence would be speedily acknowledged, not only by European nations, but by the North also. This great point was constantly pressed upon the minds of all in the army and all outside of it. The consequence was, that every one rallied, with the desperate energy of dying men. That for many days previous to that series of battles, everything in relation to the situation and condition of McClellan’s army seemed to be known in Richmond—at all events, it was talked over by all classes. They even went so far as to plan an expedition for the purpose of seizing 2500 head of cattle belonging to the Federal forces. During the last two weeks previous to the battles, no person slept nights, or tried to sleep. The Irish women, many of that class, walked the streets nights, carrying a few necessary articles of the household, and in constant expectation of McClellan’s taking the city.”

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Senator Pomeroy of Kansas, has been appointed Commissioner of African Colonization by the President, and is to have, as his representative, exclusive jurisdiction in the premises. Colonization transports are to be furnished, and to be stationed at different Atlantic ports. A proclamation will be issued to the free colored people of the United States in a few days, by Senator Pomeroy, under the authority of the president, offering them the aid of the Government, and invoking their assistance and cooperation in carrying out the scheme.

WEDNESDAY
AUGUST 27, 1862
NEW HAMPSHIRE PATRIOT & STATE GAZETTE

The End of the Peninsula Campaign.

The campaign of the peninsula is over. After untold sufferings, the noble army that left the Potomac full of life and hope a few months since, has retreated from its last position and abandoned the field where it hoped to win not only glory, which is their, but success, which they have not gained. The expectation that Richmond was doomed to fall, and that with its submission the rebellion would be crushed out, has been doomed to disappointment. It would not be profitable now to review the official incompetence, the unworthy bickerings, the shameful political intrigues that have made the recent campaign such a disastrous failure. Let us rather look to the brighter side of the picture which the future presents.

The New York Tribune, which has earned the unenviable fame of being the most mischievous enemy of McClellan’s army, draws the following picture of its retreat:

“All day yesterday the roads¹ were filling up with the immense fleet, embracing every conceivable kind of craft, presenting, as it turned the point of Newport News, a grand, though melancholy sight. Melancholy, because it filled the mind with the recollection of the great and profitless events and scenes, since we saw the army of the Potomac, the grandest the continent ever beheld, land here last Spring, and commence its proud, confident, even defiant march up the Peninsula; because it brought to mind the bloody contests it had seen, the tens of thousands slain; the tens of thousands more wasted by disease; the untold human suffering; the bloodiest page in modern warfare; because it overwhelmed the mind with the contrast of what that army was with its promises, its hopes, and the expectations reposed in it, and what it is now, what it has done, what it has failed to do, and what it is now doing—returning with less than half its numbers, along the route it went, by which it advanced, almost every mile of which is marked by unenumerated graves of fallen heroes. So ends the campaign of the Peninsula—so comes back the army of the Potomac!”

But there is a future for the army which the Tribune does not paint. It has come back, broken and reduced in numbers, it is true, but with a reputation unsullied, and with a fame which will forever brighten its memory. Its young commander, idolized by his men for the bravery he has displayed, for the persecution he has suffered and defied, and for the generalship he has shown in rescuing them from a situation of the most deadly peril, yet lives to lead them to a new field where, if he cannot win greater glory they can achieve more successful results. There seems to be little doubt now, that McClellan’s forces will be embarked at Yorktown, and either by way of Acquia Creek, or the Rappahannock, will hasten to a position where they can co-operate with the armies of Burnside and Pope. There are several ways in which this object can be accomplished. . .

If these movements can be executed speedily, before the enemy can attack either division of our forces and gain a victory over them, the new campaign in Virginia will open auspiciously, and we shall entertain but little doubt of its success. But the most vigorous efforts of the enemy will no doubt be to hasten a battle with Pope, especially when they discover the movement of McClellan’s army. The events of the next few days will therefore be looked for with anxiety and be full of interest. A rumor even now reaches us that Jackson is marching up the Valley and endeavoring to flank General Pope, with the design of attacking Washington. The latter is not probable; but it is quite likely that Jackson, leaving a force on the Rapidan, opposite Pope’s army, may make a flank movement by crossing at some distant part of the river, with the view of attacking our forces before McClellan’s arrival. At all events, if the rebels do not speedily attack Pope, and with a decisive victory, their case will be desperate.—Albany Argus.

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“If the Declaration of Independence justified the secession from the British Empire of three millions of colonists in 1776, we do not see why it would not justify the secession of five millions of Southerners from the Union.”

It was not Jeff. Davis, nor Slidell, nor Toombs, nor any other Southern rebel, who uttered the above specious justification of secession. But it was Horace Greeley. It was uttered, too, in the year 1861, after secession had begun. If secession is treason, then Horace Greeley is a traitor.

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Bitter Regrets.—Among the correspondence recently found on board of a captured rebel vessel was a letter from a prominent citizen of a Southern State to his wife, who is sojourning at a distance from home. The writer of the letter had just returned from a visit of a week or two at Richmond, and was writing to his wife what he saw there. The bitterness with which he condemns the rebellion and bewails the misery and desolation of his once happy and prosperous section of the Union is poured out with all the fervor of sincerity, and we doubt not that he expresses the feelings and hopes of thousands of others who, like him, dare not speak openly. The letter is dated the 30th ultimo. He says:

“This accursed attempt of one section to set up an independent government must, sooner or later, fail, and fail ignominiously. I am bound in duty to share in the burdens, and to do what I may to alleviate the sufferings which the attempt has brought upon those among whom I was born, but I will take no office in it—the highest would be no inducement—nor will I share in the terrible responsibility. No words can depict the horrors which I witnessed both at Richmond and upon my journey there and back. The deaths then occurring at Richmond were fully equal to one hundred and fifty a day. More than seventeen thousand sick and wounded are now in the Richmond hospitals. The recent seeming success of our arms will only serve to accelerate the downfall of our short-lived Confederacy.”

THURSDAY
AUGUST 28, 1862
THE PITTSFIELD SUN (MA)

Indian Depredations in Minnesota.

St. Paul, Aug. 26.—The latest news from New Ulm is to Saturday night. This village is mostly burned up. An arrival from Crow Wing direct brings intelligence that Hole-in-the-day, the great Chippewa Chief, issued a proclamation that he would not be responsible for the conduct of the Indians after Tuesday, and warning the whites to leave the country before that time. Hole-in-the-day sends a message to Commissioner Dole and Judge Cooper, to come up and make a treaty.

The Chippewa Agent, Walker, against whom complaints have been made by the Chippewas, is reported to have committed suicide in a fit of insanity.

The Chippewa difficulty following so close upon the Sioux raid, causes great alarm. The Northern part of the State is making earnest application for military aid.

Dispatches from Col. Sibly, dated the 25th, say he had arrived at St. Peter, on the 22d, and had been actively engaged affording all the aid possible to the beleaguered villagers.

The Indians attacked New Ulm on Saturday. The fight continued till late in the evening. Nothing had been heard from there since.

Gov. Sibly asks for a full regiment to be at once sent up armed and equipped, and thinks they and still more will be needed before the Indians are subdued. He thinks they have 4 or 5000 warriors to meet sooner or later.

Chicago, Aug. 26.—The St. Paul Press of the 24th says a careful consideration of the evidence accumulated so far forces a conviction of the influences of white men at the bottom of the Indian massacres. For weeks past white men and Missourians have been among them.

The fact that remote tribes, like the Yanktanies² and Cupheads, moving in concert with the Sioux, and that a large force attacked a fortified artillery post, like Fort Ridgely, is an attack without precedence in Indian history, and that Indians butchering Missionaries who have spent their lives among them, and who in ordinary circumstances would possess great influence over them, all seem to indicate some directing intelligence, superior to that of Indians,³ and we are forced to the conclusion that this outbreak is part of a deliberately concerted plan, its purpose being to embarrass and distract the General Government by alarming it for the safety of the frontier, and requiring the retention here of a large number of troops who might otherwise be differently engaged.

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The Rhode Island Negro Regiment.—The effort making to raise a Negro regiment in Rhode Island agreeably to the proposition of Gen. Sprague, does not meet with remarkable success. About a hundred of the colored folks of Providence assembled to discuss the matter. They were not unanimous on the subject, and it does not appear from the proceedings, that any very exalted sentiments of patriotism, or, indeed, that a very ardent spirit of any kind animated and illuminated the assembly.

The Providence Post gives the probable motives which induced Gov. Sprague to call upon the colored population of Rhode Island to volunteer. It seems that he had no disposition to embarrass the President, or in any way to force the Negro question upon the country. But, being often inquired of why Negroes, enjoying all the privileges of citizens, should be excused from doing something for the common protection, he thought it well to organize a regiment of blacks in that State, in emulation of the revolutionary example set by Rhode Island. If they were rejected as soldiers, why then the question would be settled, and he would have no further trouble about it.

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Gov. Andrew told the teachers in Worcester that society might well spare three-fourths of the lawyers, and he included himself in the list.  Society will agree with the Governor, particularly in the last part of his remark.—Boston Post.

What it Costs to Keep a Hotel at Saratoga.—Some people seem to think (says the Saratoga News,) that the receipts at our hotels are all profits, but a few items from a single week’s expenditures at the Union Hall, will show how the cash goes straight into the farmer’s pockets. During the week ending Aug. 16, he paid for

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The Two Capitals.—The following table shows the price of certain articles at the National Capital and at the beleaguered Capital of the bogus confederacy:

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Temperance Convention.—The sixth of a series of Temperance Conventions under the direction of the State Committee, is to be held in this town to-day, (Thursday,) at the Rev. Dr. Todd’s Church, commencing at 10 a.m. The towns included in the 6th Temperance District are Hancock, Lanesborough, Dalton, Pittsfield, Lenox, Lee, Stockbridge, West Stockbridge, Richmond, Windsor and Cummington, and the principal object of the Convention is to effect a more complete organization in these towns.

The meeting is to be addressed by Rev. Edwin Thompson, a member of the State Temperance Committee, and other advocates of his cause.

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The Providence Post says a class of men who still remain in that city have been seized, very suddenly, with old age and other infectious diseases. They were young enough and “wide awake” enough in 1860. Now they are short-sighted and squint-eyed, and deaf, knock-kneed and spavined,⁴ and ruptured, and older than the everlasting hills.

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Regiment after regiment—of office-seekers under the tax-bill—is arriving at Washington.

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Henry Ward Beecher has lately been pitching into the practice of working the railroad conductors and drivers on Sunday. The other day, Mr. B., in his peculiar way, was making inquiries of a Brooklyn conductor, to whom he was unknown, as to whether Sunday riding could not be broken up. “I think it might be,” said the conductor, “but for that confounded fellow, Beecher. So many of the fancy people from all parts visit his establishment, that it makes the road profitable. If he would only shut up, the thing would be done.”

FRIDAY
AUGUST 29, 1862
THE LIBERATOR (MA)

The Cause of the War.

Mr. Editor.—Did not Mr. Lincoln state a falsehood when he said to the committee of colored men, “But for the presence of your race in this country, there could have been no war”? Is the presence or the condition of the black race the cause of the war? Should he not have said, but for the fact that your race are slaves, there could have been no war?

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President Lincoln and Colonization.

Worcester, August 18, 1862.

Mr. Garrison.—The most characteristic act of the President, which exhibits him under the least disguise, is his address to the delegation of colored men. I have faith to believe that, if he could only be permitted to attain the age of Methuselah, he might possibly arrive at a dim perception of the fact, that as slavery is the cause of the rebellion, its extinction must be the only way to put it down. He says, but for the colored race, there would be no war. Marvellous foresight! So to put an end to it, he is going to expatriate it. That might possibly be accomplished in the course of Methuselah’s life-time.

I hope this bit of statesmanship will be incorporated into the next treatise on political science, for the benefit of the coming generation. A fitting diadem to grace America’s brow, that, after two centuries of the most diabolical despotism the world ever knew, she spoke, through her chief magistrate, these significant words: “We have in our midst a race that we have plundered and oppressed, to whom we have denied every claim of humanity, out of whose souls we have crushed every noble aspiration, until the judgments of God are visiting us sore; and now we will save ourselves by getting rid of them.”

Ah! President Lincoln, God is not to be hoodwinked by you. Justice and righteousness are His and you are but a speck in the hollow of his hand, which he can crush out of existence at any moment, in the silent workings of those eternal laws which he never fails to vindicate against all human inventions to defeat and evade them.

Then again, see how significant the close: “Take your full time; no hurry at all.” That has been the character of the war from the beginning, and will be to the close of his authority. Probably, he is a believer in that old doctrine, getting very popular now among theologians, that “God is never in a hurry.” This is the way they explain away our slow progress in putting down the rebellion. He probably forgot himself when He rained fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and sent the ten plagues into Egypt. Ah, no! no hurry, as long as we can send our hundred thousands to die in the swamps, and impoverish Northern capital to pay the expense of the sacrifice. No matter how much we suffer, if we can only convince the South that we never intended to harm slaver!

I am soul-sick of all this cant about the President, to prove that he is an honest man. Away with it all! and judge him by his acts, not by his intentions. I know he is an exceedingly amiable man, and therein lies the nation’s danger. He might be a good passenger in the ship in calm weather, never creating a disturbance anywhere; but he is not the man to serve as pilot amid the breakers. He deludes every man who talks with him into the belief that he is going to announce a policy for the vigorous putting down of the rebellion, and slavery, if he can be convinced that such is the will of the people; but he pays no heed to any demonstration of theirs. I have no doubt the instincts of his human soul come out, and he feels what he says at the moment he is talking with Wendell Phillips or Charles Sumner; and then, when he is talking with border State men, the instincts of Kentucky predominate, and he acts on their side.

When a nation’s fate is trembling in the scale, is it for us to stand debating whether Mr. Seward defeated this or that measure, or Mrs. Lincoln’s secession proclivities do not overrule the better judgment and impulses of her husband? No! Better that we should denounce him as a traitor. Does he not aid and abet the enemy by protecting them in the only resource they have? Is he not levying war against the government, in weakening the resources for its preservation, by crippling every effort for its successful defence? By deliberately protracting a struggle which is fast draining the life-blood of the nation, and lending his influence to those most in sympathy with the rebels, will he not, if this Republic shall fall,--and fall it must, if the odium of public sentiment is not brought to bear upon him in such a way that he will be compelled to remember that there is a North, and that it has rights as sacred as the slaveholders, and dares to maintain them—that is, if saved through Abraham Lincoln, will he not go to his place in history as one of those who deserve the execration of mankind for betraying the most sacred interests ever given to man to defend?

Mr. Seward has instituted a new policy, which is, to make the States judges of the troops necessary for the defence of the country. If it is politic to throw such a responsibility on the States, it is politic for them to act as judges of their own interests, and demand that, before another regiment shall be sent from the North, the loyal blacks shall be wrested from the service of the rebels, and permitted to enter the ranks in defence of the Union.

Such a course would be far preferable to the other alternative to which we may come, as a last resort, when the army, worn with toil and suffering, shall take the responsibility into its own hands, and override the administration.

One of the two must happen, if we are saved, because the President of himself will never wake up in season. It would be a pity to wake him up to a sense of his honor lost, for he is really  more an object of pity than of indignation. –S.E.W.

SATURDAY
AUGUST 30, 1862
THE SPRINGFIELD REPUBLICAN (MA)

Sale of the Property of Rebels.—Fighting is now the first and great work. Hemp for the traitors, confiscation, emancipation, and all the other legal and military retributions will follow in good time and in the natural order of things. Don’t be impatient. You can’t dress your hare till you catch him. But the law authorizing the sale of real estate in the rebel districts for non-payment of federal taxes is to be put in force at once in eastern Virginia. Under the direction of J. C. Underwood, fifth auditor of the treasury, the tax commission appointed for the state of Virginia by the president, John Hawxhurst, John Lewis and Lewis Ruffner, are to sell at public vendue⁵ certain rebel estates in the counties of Fairfax and Fauquier, the proceeds to be put into the treasury. Persons now absent from their estates can return, and by proving their loyalty to the government and paying interest and a percentage for expenses, redeem their. The estates of the eminent rebels John A. Washington and Gen. Lee will be among the first thus disposed of.

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The Utah Indians Getting Troublesome.

A dispatch received at the post office department, dated Salt lake, on Tuesday, says: “A general war with all the Indian tribes east of the Missouri river is close at hand. An interruption of the overland mail is daily expected. Nothing but prompt and decisive action on the part of the government will prevent it. The lines should be protected by soldiers at intervals of one hundred miles. Gen. Paige’s force is too small, and Col. Conner’s force is 400 miles west, travelling slowly. Owing to the information contained in the above dispatch, the post office department has instructed postmasters to send the California mails by way of New York till further directed.

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General News Summary.

The president has already received twenty or thirty responses from respectable colored men of African descent in different parts of the country to his proposition that their race should be set up for itself in Central America. These letters came from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Michigan, and the Western States, and are, in most cases, well written, indicating that their authors are educated men, and all purport to come from heads of families. A company of emigrants has already been organized in the District, and the president will send them out as soon as terms are made with the government of Central America.

Some of the skedaddlers from the draft who have reached Havana are now in mortal fear of the yellow fever, which has appeared there, but they only get ridicule and contempt from the Spaniards.

John M. Botts, the unyielding Virginia Unionist, has been sent from Richmond to Salisbury, N. C., where he is kept under close surveillance, not exactly as a prisoner, but not a free agent. His son has been drafted in the rebel army, under the new rebel conscript law, which takes all that were exempted under the previous rule—young Botts being lame.

At a weekly meeting, a straight-laced and most exemplary deacon submitted a report in writing of the destitute widows who stood in need of assistance from the congregation. “Are you sure, deacon,” asked another solemn brother, “that you have embraced all the widows?"⁶ He said he believed he had.

Skedaddlers are informed that the Clifton House, on the Canada side of Niagara Falls, is full. Not only the hotel buildings, but all the outhouses⁷ connected therewith, contain as many lodgers as can be stowed away.

The steamer Acacia ran on a snag 60 miles below Memphis, at 1 o’clock Thursday morning, 21st, and sunk in a few minutes. She had 150 passengers, 6 of whom were ladies. She had also a cargo of 75 tons of sutler’s goods. In five minutes after striking, she capsized and the upper deck floated off. Many of the passengers who clung to it were saved, but fully half were in the berths asleep and were lost. Most of the passengers were soldiers returning to their regiments. A number of the survivors have arrived at Helena. Not less than 75 or 80 persons perished. The captain and most of the crew were saved. The list of the lost has not been received.

The Illinois “Knights of the Golden Circle” have changed the name of their treasonable association to the “consolidated democracy.”

“If I should be drafted into the service, what would you do?” said a gentleman to his wife, lately. “Get a substitute for you, I suppose,” whereupon the worst half changed the subject of conversation.

United States inventors have initiated the heavy artillery for ships of war, the substitution of steamers fro sailing vessels as flag-ships, and the heavy screw steam frigates which were all the fashion from 1852 to 1860. The idea of mailing vessels is of American origin; the first iron-clad fight took place in American waters; the first nation to consign the old time-worn sailing ship to “sinecure” positions is America; and the first country that ever procured 23,000 naval sailors within the space of fifteen months is America.

Owing to some disaffection among the troops of the Empire brigade at East New York, a riot occurred Saturday afternoon. Barracks were torn down, a hotel gutted, several officers beaten, and many soldiers badly hurt. A militia company and 100 marines were sent to aid the police in quelling it. One of the militia fired into the crowd, killing the sergeant-major of one of the regiments. Police inspector Folk of Brooklyn was very badly cut in the head with stones, and many of the police were also injured. The troops generally stampeded to Brooklyn and New York cities, and at 9 p.m. only about 100 out of 2000 were in camp. Many have been arrested since and returned by the police. The whole affair is said to have been primarily caused by the non-reception of promised bounties.

Our government has been offered from 1,000 to 10,000 German sailors for our navy at $45 each, passage included.⁸

¹ “roads” as in a “seaway,” here “Hampton Roads.”

² Yanktonai, one of the seven principal tribes of the Sioux nation. Someone who knows more about Native American ethnography is welcome to provide an identification of the  “Cupheads,” which seems to be a distortion of native word.

³ While it would be preferable to interpret this line as meaning the Indians had trouble organizing disparate tribes, this is probably yet another racist comment on white superiority.

⁴ “Spavin” is “the enlargement of the hock of a horse by a bony growth or fluid accumulation in the joint, usually caused by inflammation or injury, and often resulting in lameness.” In an age when horses were more familiar to people, this phrase would have been readily understood. Today we would say “broken down.”

⁵ “Vendue” is a public auction.

⁶ “embraced” here means “included.”

⁷ No, not “outhouses” as in “outside bathrooms,” but the free-standing structure belonging to the hotel—such as, perhaps, garden sheds, livery stables, gate houses, &c.

⁸ The Hartford Daily Courant of 3 September 1862 claims, “It is said a government agent applying to a Germanic State for sailors for the United States navy, has received a reply offering to furnish from 1000 to 10,000 men for a bounty of $45, which sum is to include the passage money. Only 1000 were asked for.” If this later report is more accurate, it means the Federal government went looking for mercenary tars rather than them simply being offered, as per the above August 30 article.