Saturday, May 12, 2012

Barbarity Of The Rebels


When the history of this war is written there will be revelations of most appalling cruelties perpetrated upon the Union men of the South.  A letter from Knox county, Ky., gives the following account of the murder of Col. Pickens, late State senator from that county:

He was arrested and taken to Tuscaloosa, Al., where has was confined in prison for some time, on a charge of treason against the Confederacy.  He was taken out and placed in the custody of a gang of land pirates, who, it was pretended, were to convey him to some other point to have his case further investigated.  They took the old patriot and started, but did not proceed far, until they reported him to have taken suddenly sick and died.  But the facts turn out that he was taken off some distance, and the alternative presented to him to henceforth espouse the cause of rebellion, and give it the benefit of his influence and great popularity, or expiate is refusal (crime) by his life!  He told them plainly he did not recognize their government, and told them he could not and would not give his name and influence to any such cause.  He told them that if his life must be taken for that, his offence, it must go; and he hoped in God that from his blood and his grave would grow up a holy and a patriotic ardor, and that would infuse a spirit into his countrymen which would avenge his death and redeem his bleeding country.  Upon this, they deliberately hung Col. Pickens, after which they very piously sent his remains to his family.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 15, 1862, p. 1

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