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SUNDAY
FEBRUARY 12, 1865
THE DAILY
PICAYUNE (LA) |
A
Nuisance to be Abated.
One
of the most notable developments of this war has been the wonderful
perspicacity of the correspondents of the public press, who have
followed the field, lingered in the camp, and established the most
intimate relations with all the generals, admirals, colonels, and majors
in the army and navy. This has displayed itself in the remarkable
clearness and conclusiveness with which these gentlemen have always been
able to keep the country fully advised of the plans, instructions, and
movements, past, present, and to come, of those who have had in their
hands the conduct of eh war. What Gen. Grant says he intends doing, and
when, and how, and where; what Gen. Sherman’s next movement is to be,
and why; when Admiral Farragut is to attack another series of harbor
fortifications; where Gen. Lee may be looked for next, and exactly by
what route he designs inaugurating a new invasion of the North; what
councils have been held between the Secretaries of War, North and South,
and the commanders of departments; and, in short, the clearest possible
view of the strategy and policy of every campaign–all seem to be as
well known to these well posted chroniclers, as to those who are engaged
in carrying in the work.
It
has mattered little or nothing, from the beginning of the war, how often
the event has proved that the army and navy correspondents of the press
were but the merest guessers or inventors of what they assumed to write
in such positive terms. Nothing has abashed them–no exposure of their
utter unreliableness, and in some instances their adventurous mendacity,
has in the least degree prevented them from the diligent
and systematic pursuit of their vocation, their maxims apparently
being that “one tale is good until another is told,” and that “a
lie will travel from Dan to Beersheba while Truth is putting on its
boots.” A racy, spicy sensation letter, showing that the writer is
ahead of his competitors in obtaining the earliest and most authentic
intelligence, answers the present purpose of keeping up the excitement
of the general reader, so apt to believe everything he sees in print,
and procures for the correspondent an enviable reputation for
enterprise, diligence, and the most familiar intercourse with the
highest sources of authentic information.
It
is a curious feature of this system that it assumes as a fact that
which, upon a moment’s reflection, every sensible man must be aware is
to the last degree absurdly impossible. And that is that a general in
the field, at the head of his command, like Sherman, for example, noted
for his reticence with regard to his own plans, should communicate to a
scribbling camp follower, with the certainty of it appearing forthwith
in print, information of what he proposes doing, and the when, and the
how, and the why. Fancy Grant or Lee or Farragut, on the eve of an
important expedition, calling around him these gentry and qualifying
them to speak authoritatively of his movements, by revealing their
detail to such an audience! ->
|
Of
this class are the greater part of “our owns,” “our specials,”
“our reliables” of the press, who give their own guesses for gospel,
and their own surmises for sooth, with regard to what is transpiring in
cabinet and in camp, in the council of war, and in the conduct of
campaigns. It is these folks who keep the country in an incessant and
unhealthy excitement, and who, in many cases, work mischief of a much
more serious character, by their inopportune and, ordinarily, erroneous
utterances. This is one of the inconveniences of that most valuable of
the franchises of a free people–a free press. It is a gross abuse of
an institution which, rightly used, is of inestimable benefit. And it is
tolerated to the extent it is by those who see how it is abused, and who
keenly feel the consequences, from a natural reluctance to interfere
with one of the dearest rights of the citizen.
It
behooves the conductors of the press to interpose their authority in
this matter, and to discountenance the abuse of their columns by
uninformed and irresponsible correspondents. It is a duty they owe to
their country as well as to their own reputations, and that of their
journals.
•••••
The
Secret of it.–An
exchange relates that three or four times a couple appeared before a
clergyman to be married; but the bridegroom was drunk, and the reverend
gentleman refused to tie the knot. On the last occasion he expressed his
surprise that so respectable a looking girl was not ashamed to appear at
the altar with a man in such a state. The poor girl burst into tears,
and said she could not help it. “And why, pray?” “Because, sir, he
won’t come when he is sober!”
•••••
From
300 to 500 members of the Christian Commission called upon the President
lately, to thank him for his hearty cooperation with their labors in the
field of war. After George H. H. Stuart concluded his address to him,
Mr. Lincoln characteristically said: “You owe me no thanks for what I
have been able to do for you. If I may be permitted to say, I owe you no
thanks for what you have excellently done for the country and me; we are
both alike working in the same cause, and it is because of the fact of
its being a just one which gives us our mutual joy and reward in its
service.”
•••••
Shrewd
Guess.–At a parish
school examination near Swansea lately, when the question was asked,
“Why did the children of Israel make a golden calf?” a sharp little
fellow replied, “Because they hadn’t enough to make a bull.”
|
MONDAY
FEBRUARY 13,
1865
THE
MACON DAILY TELEGRAPH (GA) |
Gen. Lee as Commander-in-Chief.
The
country and the army, says the Richmond Sentinel, will be delighted to
hear that General Robert E. Lee was on yesterday nominated by the
President and confirmed by the Senate, as Commander-in-Chief of the
Confederate armies. We do not doubt that he will yield to the call thus
made upon him, and enter without delay upon his enlarged sphere of
duty–retaining personal command, however, of the army of Northern
Virginia.
Let
our whole people and our government, in all its departments, rally to
the support of Gen. Lee in the position to which he has been thus
appointed, with all the resources and all the zeal and energy at our
command. We must not expect him to do our fighting, but to direct it;
not to render unnecessary our own efforts, but to encourage them, and
guide them, and apply them.
We
stand on the threshold of a stern campaign. Soon we shall be busy amid
its trying scenes. As we love our country, let us not lose another day
of those which remain to us for appreciation. Let the most efficient
means be adopted for gathering in the absentees from our armies, for
bringing in recruits, for a wholesale reorganization, for providing
supplies and munitions, and for putting forth our whole strength. We
have called Gen. Lee to command, let us heed his counsels and second his
efforts.
We
have the material for an admirable campaign. We have a noble and
powerful army. We have a wide country. We have abundant supplies. We are
less strained for munitions after four years of war than we were in the
first campaign. We can do great things if we will apply ourselves to the
work like men. We trust that every bickering will now be hushed, and
that there will be among us only a noble emulation which shall best
serve his country, and best support our leaders.
•••••
Negotiation
and War.
We
make the subjoined extract from an able letter written to Governor
Watts, of Alabama, by Wm. F. Sanford, Esq., of Auburn. The letter takes
a calm and dispassionate, and encouraging view of our situation. The
extract is so just to those who have differed on the subject of
negotiation, that we commend it most heartily to the perusal of our
readers. We trust it may aid in teaching all, not to doubt the
patriotism of any, respect the honest convictions of all, and by uniting
us, enable us to defeat the foe:
“While,
like the Roman Consul, I shake the spear in the hand of the Statue of
the God Mars, I invoke also the rod of Mercury. Mercury was the son of
Jupiter. It was a beautiful conceit of the old Mythology which made the
God of War owe his liberty to the unarmed Mercury. War without
negotiation is senseless, brutal, devilish! I thank God that negotiation
has commenced in earnest. It was wise in Mr. Davis–in every way wise
and patriotic to send Commissioners to Lincoln. It makes no difference
what may be the result of their present conference, this action involves
ultimate peace; and to my mind settles the question of independence in
our favor. This action of the President, like the appointment of Gen.
Breckinridge to the Secretaryship of War, and Gen. Lee to the command of
the Confederate armies and the restoration of Gen. Johnston to command,
betokens a moderation and self-control on the part of the President, as
well as a wisdom, which ought to silence every accusing tongue, and
inspire the liveliest hope in every heart. ->
|
“Mr.
Davis has met Governor Brown and Mr. Stephens and Mr. Orr, and every
advocate of negotiation, with a reply which no man dare attempt to
answer. The interpretation of his action is in these words: ‘Well,
Gentlemen, you believe in negotiation. I do not. But try it. Here, Mr. Stephens, take Senator
Hunter and Judge Campbell along with you. If you there can’t settle
the question, nobody can. Do all in your power, consistent with our
honor and independence, to arrest this war. If you succeed I shall
rejoice with you. If you fail, you and your friends must rally with me
to the rescue of our country, and fight to the death.’
“Mr.
Stephens comprehended perfectly the significance of his mission. He saw
that the least it could impart was the re-union of all heads and hearts
and hands in the Confederacy in the impending campaign. That, he knew,
would result in victory, at whatever cost. He said ‘Amen!’ to the
President’s proposition and took his departure. If he ‘fails to
negotiate a peace,” we shall soon after his return hear the shrill
notes of his voice swelling through the valleys and echoing from the
mountain-tops of every State in the Confederacy in favor of such was as
tyrants sometimes demand as the price of liberty–‘war to the
knife.’
But
Mr. Davis hoped for something even better than our own union. Mr.
Stephens believed in something better. Both perceived, clearly, that one
more campaign might be necessary to ‘conquer a peace.’ Both know
that Mr. Lincoln is so weighed down by opposing influences in the North
and Europe that he cannot continue the war longer than one year. Mr.
Stephens believed that the present agitation of the subject would so
increase those opposing influences–so elevate the hopes of the peace
men–so shake men’s minds loose from the bloody purpose, that Mr.
Lincoln may find it impossible to recruit his wasted armies and
prosecute even one more campaign. I believe that Mr. Stephen’s theory
will prove to be the correct one; that the Mercury rod will prevail;
that the diplomacy of this negotiation is perfect, and will at once
unite the South and divide the North; that the appeal to reason will
strengthen the argument of the peace party of the North–the pause in
the work of death will give conscience a glimpse of the terrible
responsibility of this war, and that if Mr. Lincoln shall attempt
another campaign, it will be a failure. But every hope may be
disappointed, and we may be thrown upon the one dreadful alternative of
war. Looking to this possibility, and accepting as the plain truth the
declaration of General Cleburne that, ‘when once our people, or the
great body of them, sincerely value independence above every other
earthly consideration,’ our success ‘shall be an accomplished
fact,’ I give myself up wholly to consider the means of success. I
look away from every other question and devote my energies to the work
of preparation for possible war. Negotiation begun, my anxieties cease
on that account. It will go on. Let us not be found like the sleeping
pilot, unprepared for the storm which may arise. . .
|
TUESDAY
FEBRUARY 14, 1865
THE NEW
HAMPSHIRE SENTINEL |
The Rebel War Powwow.
Significant Speech and
Silence.
It
is noticed in the Richmond papers, but without comment, that neither
vice president Stephens nor Judge Campbell, two of the peace envoys,
have yet taken any part in the effort to fire he southern heart Mr.
Stephens has gone to Georgia, but for what purpose is not known.
Stephens and Hunter represented to Gen. Grant that they were willing to
negotiate for return to the Union. Hunter made the first speech at the
grand war powwow which was kept up at Richmond all day on Thursday last.
Hunter declared the South to be fighting for the right of
self-government, and raved about the fury and barbarity with which the
North had waged war. He said the northern government would negotiate
with the meanest hostile Indian tribe, but would make no terms with a
nation of ten million people. Some of Mr. Hunter's statements are
reported as follows:
“In
the government to which they were thus required to submit
unconditionally, it was not promised that they should even have a voice.
It was distinctly left uncertain whether they should be allowed any
representation. President Lincoln had told our commissioners–had
told him (Mr. Hunter)–that should we elect representatives and send
them to the Washington Congress, he (President Lincoln) would be in
favor of receiving them, but he was only one man, and whether or not
they would be received was uncertain. Such was the inducement held out
to us, such the proposed basis of pacification. Mr. Hunter then
proceeded to notice some of the further consequences of submission or
surrender to the Washington government. More than three millions of
slaves, worth from 1200 to 1500 millions of dollars, would at once be
turned loose as idlers and vagabonds, upon our community. It was not necessary
to explain the evils of such a population, nor would it be allowed to us
to regulate or restrain them, so as to make them useful, or correct
their viciousness.”
Mr.
Benjamin, the rebel secretary of state, said in his speech, that Mr.
Davis had never consented to any negotiations except on the basis of confederate
independence, and that vice president Stephens believed peace could be
had on that basis, and therefore he was sent to make the effort. Mr.
Benjamin proceeded to say;:
“We
knew its failure would be the signal for a grand uprising of the people
which was the only element necessary to success. We hear it now in the
improved tone of public sentiment. What is our present duty? We want
means. Are they in the country? If so, they belong to the country, and
not to the man who chances to hold them now. They belong either to the
Yankees or to the confederate states. I would take every bale of cotton
in the land. Take all the cotton and tobacco and make it the basis of
means without which we cannot go on. I want more. I want all the bacon,
everything which can feed soldiers, and I want it as a free gift to the
country. Talk of rights! What right do the arrogant invaders leave you?
I want another thing. War is a game that cannot be played without men.
Where are the men? Our resources of white population have greatly
diminished, but you had 680,000 black men of the same ages, and could
Divine prophecy have told us of the fierceness of the enemy’s death
grapple at our throats, could we have known what me now know, that
Lincoln has confessed, that without 200,000 Negroes which he stole from
us, he would be compelled to give up the contest, should we have
entertained any doubts upon the subject? Let us say to every Negro who
wishes to go into the ranks on condition of being made free, ‘Go and
fight–you are free.’ If we impress them, they will go against us. We
know that every one who could fight for his freedom has no chance. The
only side that has had advantage of this element is the Yankee people,
that can beat us to the end of the year in making bargains. Let us
imitate them in this–I would imitate them in nothing else. My own
Negroes have been to me and said: ‘Master, set us free and we will
fight for you. We had rather fight for you than for Yankees.’ But
suppose it should not be so; there is no harm in trying. With all my
early attachments and prejudices, I would give up all.
“South
Carolina, I know, will follow Virginia, as well as every other southern
state, if she but take the lead. When shall it be done? Now, now. Let
your legislature pass the necessary laws, and we will soon have 20,000
men down in those trenches fighting for the country. You must make up
your minds to try that, or see your army withdrawn from before your
town. I came to say disagreeable things. I tell you you are in danger,
unless some radical measure be taken. I know not where white men can be
had. It is said there are quartermaster's clerks, railroad employees
and men in bomb-proofs; but I tell you there are not enough able-bodied
white men in the country. Do you suppose we have worked night after
night by this infamous gaslight you have here, and not found out this
thing? My honorable friend has told you that deserters and skulkers
would come in. It is possible; but where is Tennessee and other states
that were formerly relied on? You have part of Virginia. –part of
North Carolina, part of South Carolina, and parts of other states–what
else? [Voice–Texas.] Texas! She is beyond our reach. Would that she
were not! ->
|
There
is another thing wanted after you have given us all the men and all the
means we want. Croakers should be hanged. (Good.) They should be put in
the trenches and the soldiers should inflict capital punishment upon
them. Put them in the trenches, and let soldiers come to town and take
their places. This is the sort of capital punishment I would accord
them.”
At
the evening meeting Mr. Semmes of Louisiana, made a speech quite as
depressing to the rebels in its views of the situation as that of Mr.
Benjamin. Among other things he said:
“Though
hereafter we might be obliged to fall back to the interior of the
country, they should not despond. The fall of Charleston, Wilmington, or
even of Virginia was not the fall of the cause. It had been said that
Virginia troops would not leave Virginia if it were abandoned by the confederate
government. Any Virginia soldier who should remain here under such
circumstances, would remain here because he wished and was ready to
submit. Therefore be wanted no such talk. We all looked to Virginia, not
only as the mother of statesmen, but of warriors, the mother of that
grand old hero, Robert E. Lee, whom we were all willing to follow
wherever he might lead.”
The
Richmond Examiner thinks the
correspondence between President Davis and Secretary Seddon is not
calculated to stimulate enthusiasm in the South. “Mr. Seddon resigns
in deference to the wishes of congress. Mr. Davis protests against a
resignation upon any such ground, and would not accept the resignation,
if Mr. Seddon could be induced to retract it. He denies the
responsibility of cabinet Offices to any authority, except to the
president himself, and claims for the executive as much right to express
a distrust of congress, as for congress to declare a want of confidence
in the executive.”
The
Enquirer of the 9th calls for
an entire change is the rebel cabinet. The great objection to Secretary
Benjamin is that he is a Jew. “One great cause of Mr. Benjamin's
unpopularity has been the fact that in no proclamation signed by him, as
secretary of state, has ever the existence of a Triune God been
admitted. He has confined his state papers to deistical belief, and
stamped upon the religious faith of the country a practical denial of a
Trinitarian Jehovah. This was his faith, but not the faith of the
wide-spread religious sentiment that prevails throughout this country.
The people do not like to be made to choose between Jesus Christ and
Judah P. Benjamin, and to take the latter in preference. Appealing to
God, and not recognizing the divinity of His Son, is mocking Jehovah
with a vain repetition of words which have no meaning. The country asks
no hypocrisy from Mr. Benjamin; his religious belief is respected, but
they desire some other statesman, whose faith more accords with the
religious convictions of the people.”
The
Whig is delighted with Get
Bather’s attack on Gen Game. It knew before that Grant's reputation
was founded on charlatanry, and that his victories in Virginia were
wholesale defeats and slaughters, but it is glad to have those facts
confirmed on such veracious testimony as that of Butler. The Whig also
gloats over Butler’s statement about the stoppage of exchanges, and
says: “It appears that Grant gave orders to stop the exchange after
Butler had made arrangements to perfect it. That Butler then wrote an
argument not for the purpose of supporting a position deemed to be just
in itself, but to make a case by which the violation of the cartel might
be justified to the world. In other words, the reasons given were not
the true reasons, but were sham reasons, and thus the scores of
thousands of unfortunate captives on both sides were made to suffer, not
to maintain a principle, but in order to prevent the confederacy getting
the services of any more men, and thus to enable Grant to conceal, in
some, measure, his extraordinary blunders and stupendous losses.”
Gov.
Clark has called an extra session of the Mississippi legislature at
Mason on the 20th. The Virginia legislature is talking about raising the
value of confederate paper by making the buying and selling of gold a
penal offense. The rebel congress is considering a bill to abolish the
conscription bureau, and put the whole business in the hands of the
army.
A
committee of conference is adjusting the difference between the bills
of the rebel senate and house on the employment of free Negroes and
slaves in the army. The bill for enlisting 200,000 slaves, to be
emancipated if they prove true and loyal to the end of the war, received
the votes of Senators Brown, Henry and Vest.
|
WEDNESDAY
FEBRUARY 15, 1865
PROVIDENCE
EVENING PRESS (RI) |
Letter
from Washington.
Washington,
Feb. 13th, 1865.
One
of the most provoking, and at the same time heart-breaking undertakings
in the world is to attempt to write a letter when there is absolutely
nothing whatever to write about. The “Washington Correspondent” is
peculiarly a victim of such a state of affairs. With the most
praiseworthy intentions, he seizeth his pen, and accumulating paper and
ink, setteth about the composition of his letter with diligence. The
date of the communication is written easily enough–after that, as Tony
Lumpkin says, it is all buzz.1
He, as it were, calls spirits from the vasty deep, but they will not
come. He invokes facts and incidents, but they elude his mental grasp,
nor can his pen capture them in their flight to imprison them on paper.
He curses the science of telegraphy, which forestalls all he could say,
and execrates the name of Morse. But the letter must be written, and so
Willard’s is haunted and Congressmen bored, and newspapers rummaged,
and the result is a mélange
of pickings, stealings, and very little original matter to give
consistency to the mess, and thus it is when there is no news afloat
that “our Washington correspondent” meets his responsibilities and
fulfills the contract with his employees.
The
ice is thickly packed in the Potomac river, and so cold is the weather,
that this impediment to navigation is hourly growing more formidable. A
few daring boats have managed to crush their way through the obstacle,
but it is expected that the channel will soon be closed, and then our
communication with Grant’s army, can only be kept up by telegraph
until the weather becomes more moderate.
The
recent movement to Hatcher’s Run, which was at first regarded as a
serious check by many, is now looked upon as a success, and furnishes
another evidence of Grant’s outgeneralling Lee. The Richmond papers
concede that Grant’s “movement of cavalry in the direction of
Dinwiddie Court House seems to have been planned and executed to give
his infantry time to entrench on the ground they had won at Hatcher’s
Run, which, as is now known, they have done effectually,” and from
which they cannot be dislodged. Our men are now near enough the
long-tried-for South Side railroad to hear the whistling of the
locomotives and the rumbling of the trains. The rebels admit that their
loss was very heavy in the late engagements and included two general
officers. The truth is, Grant has made another advance against Richmond,
tightening his inexorable grasp upon the rebel capital, and furthering
the triumph which cannot be avoided by all the generalship of Lee and
the gallantry of his followers.
A
scene was presented yesterday in the capital of the nation, which
heretofore has had no parallel in this eventful age. A black man
conducted divine service in the Hall of the United States House of
Representatives, and his audience, composed of high and low, black and
white, sat together with one voice joined in the responses. The
preacher’s name was the Rev. H. H. Garnet, and he was the first
colored man whose voice had ever been heard in the Council Chamber of
the nation. -> |
It
was one epoch in this age that will not soon be forgotten. How it will
gladden the sainted repose of an Adams, a Giddings and a Lovejoy, to
know that their fervent prayers to the Lord of Sabbath have been so
early heeded. As the minister stood in the speaker’s place with the
full length portrait of Washington adorning the wall upon his right, and
that of Lafayette upon his left he appeared as authority for free men
and women, and in a most eloquent strain he paid a beautiful tribute to
the spirits of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and the hosts of
Freedom’s champions, who, if they looked down upon the scene a few
days since in that hall, when the great national work was consummated
that slavery should no longer exist in this country, must have responded
with the angel choir a heart Amen!
This
is but a faint sketch of his able discourse–and several times during
its delivery the audience were so thrilled by the power of his logic
that it was with difficulty that their enthusiasm was restrained.–Kearsarge.
•••••
Spiteful
Rebel Women.–A
member of the Second Massachusetts Cavalry, now in the Shenandoah
Valley, writing to his friends in this city, said some of the men in
that regiment, on a recent Sunday, attending services in a small
Episcopal church. The congregation was made up of women and children,
with the exception of two or three old men. The women scowled as the
soldiers passed up the aisle, and some of them vented their spite by
spitting upon the men in Federal uniform.–Boston
Traveller.
•••••
Southern
News.–Washington,
Feb. 14.–Richmond
papers of the 11th contain the following:
In
the rebel House of Representatives on the 7th, Mr. Barksdale introduced
a bill providing that the President be authorized to ask and accept from
the owners of slaves such numbers of able bodied Negroes as he may deem
expedient during the war, to perform military service in whatever
capacity the General-in-Chief may direct. The House, 22 against 53
refused to reject the bill, which was then sent to a special committee.
•••••
Washington
Matters.–
Washington, Feb. 14.–It is stated that the substance of the
dispatch from General Grant to the government, received to-day, is that
the Richmond papers of Monday say that Sherman has crossed the Edisto,
which was the line held by General Hardee, defending Branchville.
According
to the same rebel authority, a portion of Sherman’s forces are
two-thirds of the way from the Edisto to Columbia, at an important point
forming a junction of the Charlotte & South Carolina and Greenville
& Columbia railroads, which connect with the railroads to Richmond.
|
THURSDAY
FEBRUARY 16,
1865
THE
SALEM REGISTER (MA) |
The
American Soldier.
The Army and Navy Journal contains an admirable article on “The
Future of the American Soldier,” designed to show the futility of the
idea very generally entertained that, with peace, will come a very
practical difficulty will come a very practical difficulty in disposing
of our soldiers, and that it will be desirable, perhaps absolutely
necessary, to embroil ourselves with some foreign power to find the only
fitting use and safe employment for the adventurous spirits which our
civil war has called out on both sides.
The article shows a very just appreciation of the character of
the American Soldier, and illustrates very satisfactorily the difference
between our troops, composed of volunteers of intelligence and
education, fitly representing the great industrial classes, and those of
European monarchies and despotisms.
It also gives a graphic picture of what our soldiers have
accomplished.
“The
standing armies of Europe,” it says, “present no analogies to these
three great Anglo-Saxon armies of liberty, and more especially to ours
of to-day. They are levied
for destruction; this to preserve and construct.
They are armies of kings; this an army of people.
They, officered by privileged classes, by years of severe
training, succeed in converting a class, held by the exigencies of
poverty in a position only less degrading than that of the slave in that
it recognizes their freedom, into machine soldiers, capable of great
daring and great endurance, but entirely dependent upon their leaders
for guidance. The American
Army sprang at once, almost ready made, from counting-house, store and
workshop--each individual brought the keen intelligence which he had
hitherto devoted to his private business, to learning that new
profession to which patriotism summoned him.
In days he accomplished the work of months.
In a few months he became a veteran equal to the trained soldiers
possessing years of experience. In
the artillery, the most difficult of arms, a volunteer field force was
organized which, in a single year, could not have been surpassed, hardly
perhaps equalled, by any regular artillery holding the field on long
lines of communication.
“A
race unaccustomed to the saddle have raised a cavalry which, though
often beaten at the commencement of the war, never lost confidence, and
was never discouraged, and has ended by becoming the type upon which its
antagonists are trying to organize a force able to withstand it.
A volunteer engineer corps has constructed bridges over larger
rivers and more rapid streams than have been bridged by an army before;
have made surveys of the most elaborate and accurate description,
stretching over a vast extent of country; have thrown up works
exhibiting a capacity of resistance equal to the choices productions of
the European schools. A
volunteer infantry has shown unequalled endurance under hardship,
unfailing courage under defeats, brilliant perseverance under
difficulties--qualities supposed to be the peculiar qualities of the
veteran. It has achieved
victories over men of the same race, led by the ablest officers the
Southern aristocracy could produce, educated at the expense of the Union
and they betrayed. It has
assaulted works deemed impregnable by good judges, made marches without
parallel, campaigned over snow-clad mountains as difficult of access as
the Alps or the Apennines, over rivers larger than any Europe contains–and
it has accomplished all this under the inspiration of pure patriotism,
and the exalted love of freedom. ->
|
“Above
all, it has developed generals whose previous experience was at the outside
limited to commanding a company of infantry or cavalry against an Indian
tribe; a few of whom, nevertheless, whether we consider their disposition of
troops in action, their handling of enormous bodies of men, their
strategical manœuvres, through campaigns involving advances of
hundreds of miles; the personal influence they exert upon their men,
or the brilliant and sound originality they have shown that in some of their
maneuvers, are without equal in modern days–Napoleonic
himself alone excepted.
“When
the armies of Cromwell and Washington laid down the sabres they had taken up
for popular liberty, and returned each man to his plough, his workshop, his
store, history has recorded that they were remarkable for their valuable
qualities as citizens; honest, upright, industrious, with minds disciplined
by the career they had gone through, by the dangers they had met, the
difficulties they had overcome, and the death they had so often freely
faced. They became the ornaments
of the countries they had fought four, the noble expounders of the liberty
they had won. So will the
American soldier of to-day; the task he imposed upon himself once
accomplished, the Union preserved, the Constitution respected, liberty
secured, returning to his daily path in life a better citizen then he left
it.”
•••••
The
American Navy.
Hon.
Alexander H. Rice, in his masterly defence of the general policy of the Navy
Department, in reply to Hon. H. Winter Davis, gave the following
comprehensive summary of what has been accomplished for the Navy:
“Well,
sir, during the year 1861, starting in the spring with only four vessels
available for the whole uses of this gigantic war, to blockade all the
southern ports, to recover all the places that had been stolen from us, to
open the great internal channels of commerce–starting, I say, with those
four vessels, before the close of the year 1861, the first year of the war,
during a period of only about nine months, the number increased from four
vessels to two hundred and twenty-six. This is the work accomplished, so far
as outfitting a navy is concerned, by this Department in the first nine or
ten months of the war. During the second year that number was increased to
between three and four hundred. During the next year, if I remember rightly,
it rose up to more than five hundred and eighty. And now, sir, at the end of
the fourth year, we have a Navy of six hundred and seventy-one vessels; not
all built on one plan, not all built of one size, not all built of one
fashion and for one use, as the honorable gentleman from Maryland would seem
to imply by his argument would have been judicious, but various in their
construction and appliances, adapted to the ever-changing, ever-new
exigencies and necessities of this great war.”
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FRIDAY
FEBRUARY 17,
1865
THE BOSTON
HERALD |
Progress of the War.
Virginia.–Rumor
still asserts that Richmond is to be evacuated at an early day. Great
meetings have recently been held in the city and much fiery talk
indulged in. Hunter said the result of the recent conference shows that
nothing is left to the South but war to the bitter end or servitude.
Benjamin, the rebel Secretary of State, was in favor of the States
arming the slaves, and called upon Virginia to take the lead. There is
evidently a great effort made to influence the masses immediately,
before the real state of the case is known. Meanwhile the clamor against
Davis and his Cabinet continues and the papers call l0udly for a change,
saying the people have lost all confidence in the administration at
Richmond.
The
rebel Congress have been holding recent session in relation to their
finances, it having been ascertained that their debt is four hundred
millions more than they had estimated. Additional taxation is
recommended.
Sherman’s
Advance.–Branchville
is reported to be in Sherman’s possession, and Charleston is again
evacuated. As it has already been evacuated, on paper, several times, no
one is in haste to credit the story. A rebel dispatch from Branchville
states that our soldiers had destroyed the railroad bridge over the
Edisto river, cutting off all communication by rail with Augusta.
Kilpatrick was at Blackville with three brigades.
From
the South West.–It is
ascertained that a heavy cavalry force under Gen. Wilson, the well-known
cavalry leader, is moving from northern Mississippi in the direction of
Montgomery, Ala., and thence, it is said, will move on Mobile. This
expedition is reported to consist of forty thousand men. The distance is
about three hundred miles, through a country easy to traverse and
affording sufficient forage on the line of march. It is the largest
expedition of the kind during the war, and no doubt is entertained of
its success.
•••••
Communication
with Richmond.–It
is well known that for a long time communication with Richmond has been
kept up by means of advertisements in the New York Daily
News. The “personal notices” in that paper contained great
numbers of advertisements, addressed to people in the South, purporting
to make inquiries or to give personal information, and the Richmond
papers were requested to copy them, and did so. They in turn published
similar advertisements which were copied into the News,
and thus a steady correspondence kept up. Whether the inquiries as to
“the health of Mary” and the reply that “John was here last week
looking well,” and the like were bona
fide family news, or reports of a more serious sort in disguise,
nobody could tell, but the gravest suspicions have long been
entertained. General Dix has now ordered the News
to suppress its “personal notices of this sort. We know of no case in
which the military power could be exercised with better reason, to
control the action of the press.
•••••
Effect
of Peace upon Prices.
We
do not anticipate any sudden decline in prices upon the return of peace.
A decline in the price of gold would not necessarily produce a great
fall in the price of goods; for other causes may, and we think, will,
tend to keep them up. Thus the enormous amount of taxes which the war
necessity has created, is a component part of the price of any article;
and so long as the tax continues, the higher price must continue. ->
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A
familiar instance will occur to our readers in the case of matches,
which on the 1st of September last, advanced one hundred and forty-four
cents on the gross. There was no change on that day in the price of
gold. It was the tax that increased the price. And so, in like
proportion, on all articles which are taxed. Secondly, an increased
demand will advance or keep up prices without reference to the price of
gold.
This
demand, we think, will arise in the immense amount of supplies required
by the devastated South. That great region, containing some ten millions
of people, has been so exhausted during four years past, that a lively
demand will for a long time exist for all those commodities which they
have received from the North. This demand will take the place of, and
exceed that caused by, the purchases by the government for the army; and
this last demand will not cease, for the army will still be kept up, and
the peace establishment is not likely to be reduced very much below that
in time of war.
Again,
as soon as peace returns, a strong impetus will be given to ship
building. Our ships have been destroyed by pirates, worn out and wrecked
during the last four years, and, on account of the political troubles,
little or no attempt has been made to supply their places. We say
nothing now of those sold to foreign flags, although to a limited
extent, they might be considered in the calculation. But to fill the
places of those actually taken out of service, a great demand for labor,
materials for building and equipping in great variety will spring up,
and all of these items will rather advance than decline upon the
restoration of peace. The price of gold will not greatly affect the
price of these things.
So
of real estate. The high prices of labor and material, (an advance o an
average of more than double that of three years ago,) have checked
building, and no new contracts were made. The result is that the supply
of houses and stores has been reduced, rents and prices of real estate
are now increasing rapidly, and by the time of peace there will be no
supply equal to the demand. The increasing prosperity of new trade will
call for new houses, and they will be put at the enhanced prices.
Foreign
goods, as it seems to us, are the only articles likely to suffer a large
and permanent fall, and this may happen by reason of the decline in the
price of foreign exchange. The decline of gold would reduce bills on
Europe in the same ratio, and the importer thereby purchasing his goods
at lower rates, could sell at corresponding reduction.
So
long, however, as our heavy taxes continue, all prices must keep up, for
the simple reason that the tax makes a part of the cost of the article
and is finally paid by the consumer. We do not anticipate, on the return
of peace, any extent of commercial embarrassment. The trade of the last
two or three years has been mostly for cash or its equivalent, and a
spirit and principle of caution have prevailed which will break the
effect of a fall in prices, should t occur, and for the foregoing
reasons we do not apprehend any great decline. There is not any such
vast amount of debt piled up in eh South and Southwest as was in former
years the result of long credits, and of the tendency of those sections
to anticipate their future crops.
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SATURDAY
FEBRUARY 18, 1865
COLUMBIAN WEEKLY
REGISTER (CT) |
A Ram
Sold by the Danish Government to the Rebels.–Official
information has been received from Mr. Dudley, Consul at London, to the
effect that a telegram from Nantes, France, states that the Bordeaux ram
has been sold by the Danish Government to the Rebels, at the island of
Houat, and that she will sail immediately. He also stated that some
fifty sailors were shipped from there some days previous, and went to
France, no doubt for this vessel. He says he is disposed to believe the
report true, as everything in England tends to confirm it.
•••••
The
latest news from Europe is that the Confederate steamer Ajar has escaped
from the Clyde and gone to the West Indies. Also, that the so-called
“Peruvian steamer Union”
is suspected of having a similar object in view and it so, we may soon
expect to hear of depredations in the West Indies.
•••••
Recovery
from the Effects of War.–Mills,
in his Political Economy,
speaks of the rapidity with which people recover from the effects of
war, and explains the reason as follows:
This
perpetual consumption and reproduction of capital affords the
explanation of what has so often excited wonder, the great rapidity with
which countries recover from a state of devastation; the disappearance,
in a short time, of all traces of the mischiefs done by earthquakes,
floods, hurricanes, and the ravages of war. An enemy lays waste a
country by fire and sword, and destroys or carries away nearly all the
moveable wealth existing in it: all the inhabitants are ruined, and yet
in a few years after, everything is much as it was before. This vis
medicatrix natures has been a subject of sterile astonishment, or
has been cited to exemplify the wonderful strength of the principle of
saving, which can repair such enormous losses in so brief an interval.
There is nothing at all wonderful in the matter. What the enemy have
destroyed, would have been destroyed in a little time by the inhabitants
themselves: the wealth which they so rapidly reproduce, would have
needed to be reproduced and would have been reproduced in any case, and
probably in as short an interval.
Nothing
is changed, except that during the reproduction they have not now the
advantage of consuming what had been produced previously. The
possibility of a rapid repair of their disasters, mainly depends on
whether the country has been depopulated. If its effective population
have not been extirpated at the time, and are not starved afterwards;
then, with the same skill and knowledge which they had before, with
their land and its permanent improvements undestroyed, and the more
durable buildings probably unimpaired, or only partially injured, they
have nearly all the requisites for their former amount of production. If
there is as much of food left to them, or of valuables to buy food, as
enables them by any amount of privation to remain alive and in working
condition, they will in a short time have raised as great a produce, and
acquired collectively as great wealth and as great a capital, as before;
by the mere continuance of that ordinary amount of exertion which they
are accustomed to employ in their occupations. Nor does this evince any
strength in the principle of saving, in the popular sense of the term,
since what takes place is not intentional abstinence but involuntary
privation.
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Yankee
Notions.–The
notion that school houses are cheaper than state prisons.
The
notion that men are a better crop to raise than anything else.
The
notion that people who have brains enough can’t be governed by
any-body but themselves.
The
notion that if you can’t make a man think as you do, try to make him
do as you think.
The
notion that the United States is liable at any time to be doubled, but
ain’t liable at any time to be divided.
The
notion that Uncle Sam can thrash his own children when they need it.
The
notion that the Yankees area foreordained
race, and can’t be kept
from spreading and striking in any more than turpentine can when it once
gets loose.–Josh Billings.
•••••
Comparative Strength of
Liquors.
Dr.
Jones, physician of St. George’s Hospital, London, in a recent
lecture, stated that the different fermented liquors which he had
examined might, in regard to their strength or stimulating power, be
thus arranged: Cider 100; Porter 109; Stout 138; ale 141; Moselle 158;
Claret 166; Burgundy 191; Hock 191; Champagne 241; Madeira 325; Marsala
341; Port 358; Sherry 358; Geneva 811; Brandy 986; Rum 1243. Thus ten
glasses of Cider or Porter, six glasses of claret, five of Burgundy,
four of Champagne, three of Sherry, are equivalent to one glass of
Brandy, or three-quarters of a glass of Rum.
•••••
A
Freedman.–Among
the lodgers at the Fifth War station house last night was an old Negro,
about sixty years. He was crippled, broken down with age, and had no
home. During the day, as we learned from himself, he begged his meals,
and at night pitched for the nearest station house. This course of
living he had indulged in for nearly ten months. He was formerly a slave
in Virginia, and, as he stated, had a kind and indulgent master. He was
liberated by our troops, sent to Washington, and from thence shipped to
Philadelphia, where he has since remained almost in a state of
starvation. He claims that he never had any desire to come North, but
was deceived by those who sent him here. He want so go “home” again,
as he terms it, as he feels that he is in a strange and cold land,
without friends or protection. He has been in the alms house once or
twice, and committed to prison as a vagrant quite as often. This is not
the only instance where the freedmen of the South has been sent North to
starve and to fill our almshouses and prisons.–Philadelphia
Age.
•••••
The
enormous sum of $114,645,362.49 has been expended merely for bounties by
the cities, towns and counties of New York. The proportion will probably
hold good in every State in the Union. There must come an end to all
this, sooner or later, for the load of indebtedness will be too
monstrous to be borne. |
1 Tony
Lumpkin is a fictional character who first appeared in Oliver
Goldsmith's 1773 play, She Stoops to Conquer. The character
became so popular that he was later used in a 1778 play, Tony Lumpkin
in Town, by John O'Keeffe. The play was still popular in England in
the mid-nineteenth century, so the character and such lines were
familiar to American readers. While this may seem incredible, consider
that in 2014, lines from famous movies of the 1930s are still
recognized, (e.g., “Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn!” or
“I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”)
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