Senator Wright on Confiscation

Senator Wright, of Indiana, made the following remarks on the confiscation bill in the Senate, on the 30th ult.:

Mr. WRIGHT – I am strongly in favor of some bill of this character. Some such bill ought to have passed at the last session of Congress, but we seem to have gone on as though we had no war upon our hands. We must be alive to the exigencies of the hour. This monstrous rebellion must be destroyed, and destroyed speedily; and as a means for such an end I have looked earnestly for the passage of some proposition for the confiscation of the property of those engaged in rebellion against the Government. We have forborne until forbearance has become dishonor.

It is time lawlessness and treason should cease whether under the pretended guise of rebellion, or under the more insidious guise of a free speech, which gloats over every obstacle brought forward to prevent a restoration of the Union. It is time rapine and murder were called by their right names and punishes as they deserve. I can have no possible leniency for those men, educated at the expense of the Government, who turn against it in armed rebellion. We must make it understood that we do not educate men for service in Rebel armies. Yet I would deal leniently with the misguided masses, and I would prefer that the President should have some power to grant a general amnesty. I have no patience, Sir, to listen to long discussions about the power of Congress to pass such an act as this. Congress has the power to declare war and to suppress rebellion, and having those, I take it they have the power to provide for the vigorous prosecution of these objects. The greater power certainly includes the lesser. Neither shall I stop to argue the constitutionality of this measure. – But I may say that in times of great peril to free institutions, when disloyal citizens rise in rebellion to spurn the Constitution and defy the laws, there is a supreme and absorbing duty to which all others are subject – the duty of self-preservation, safety to the Government from disruption, and to the Constitution you talk about from annihilation. Every thing opposed to its existence must be made to yield or be swept away with an iron hand, that the nation may live. All minor considerations must be neglected and all inferior interest must perish. I wish to refer a moment to the character of the war in which we are engaged. Without referring to authorities, I will say in my own language that there are two kinds of war. I will designate one as a perfect war, and the other as a mixed or civil war. A perfect war is where one independent nation declares war against another nation, and its laws are well understood and must be as strictly observed as any other laws. A mixed war or rebellion, on the contrary, is in defiance of society, and meets with no encouragement from the laws of nations. In a perfect war, all the subjects and citizens of one country are considered enemies of the other country with which they are at war; they are so recognized and treated by the laws of nations. There is no exception. All those owning allegiance to one nation are foes of the other.

It is, however, entirely different in the case of a civil war. When we declare war against the rebellion of the South, we do not declare war against the States, but our hostilities are directed only against those who have taken up arms against the government, and the end we seek is the suppression of insurrection and the restoration of order. We do not declare that all the citizens of the seceded States shall be considered alien enemies. Therefore we must be careful how we do anything to destroy the existence of the States. War, strictly speaking, is between two independent Powers, and its code of laws are known as the laws of nations, and no single Power can amend them. Our present condition may be called a mixed war, one of the parties standing to the other in the double relation of enemies and citizens. This rebellion is a mere aggregation of all crime committed by individual citizens, which has grown to the dimensions of a war. All the crimes may be dealt with detail – as murder or arson, as the case may be – and are comprehended under the name of treason. The moment we come to recognize it in its aggregate character, we are in great danger of giving it an undue recognition. The conflict of our armies with these felons ought to be viewed as neither more nor less than an attempt to arrest them for their crimes. The Senator from Vermont (Mr. Collamer) seems to recognize the Rebels as a Power, and not as individual felons, and that they must be treated according the rules of war. If he means simply as the civilized and Christian usages, I agree with him; but if he means that foreign nations might call us to account upon international law, I entirely dissent from that opinion. We might just as well attempt to interfere with Austria or the Neapolitian Government in their treatment of criminals, and surely nothing could be worse. I deny that any Government has a right to call in question our treatment of criminals, or to interfere in this contest any way, unless it be in the matter of the blockade which concerns the commerce of other nations, and I ask the question here, Why should our armies restrict their seizures of rebel property to that found in the camps? If it is on the ground that there is want of proof that the property belongs to rebels, then it is right. If it is on the ground that according the rules of national warfare we cannot take it, then it is decidedly wrong. We seem to labor under the delusion that this is a perfect war, and not an attempt to arrest our own citizens for felony, every one of whom is responsible, and might be prosecuted to the extend of the law. This is in face a measure providing for the release of the great body of criminals, and reserving only a few leaders or punishment. We are contending only for the suppression of rebellion, but also for the respect of the great nations of the earth. I am tired, sir, of hearing the leaders of this rebellion called our brethren. They do no deserve any favors at our hands. They have shocked the civilization of all ages by committing barbarities almost unparalleled in history.

Shall we call those our brethren who have brought sorrow and suffering to almost every hearthstone in this country, who have armed savages against us? Will cooling and soft words change the hearts of those assassins who, in the midnight watches, stealthily creep upon our pickets and murder them in cold blood? Do brethren mutilate the bodies of our soldiers, bury them with faces downward, and do things which we might expect only from savages and cannibals? No, sir, they are not our brethren. They are our mortal foes, and we must treat them as such. The manner in which this people has risen to defend this Government has extorted the praise and admiration of even of those who are opposed to the republican government. – When the citizens of the country have done and are doing so well, shall we neglect the high trust they have confided to us? The people look to this Congress to pass some measure for the confiscation of the property of those in rebellion against the Government. I for one am not willing to disappoint them in their just expectation. They do not ask it from any sordid motive, but from motives which subserve the ends of true justice. I regard this as one of a series of acts essential to the putting down of this rebellion. There also should be another provision – that as our armies advance into the regions where treason is rampant, they must be subsisted upon the enemy, and it is incumbent upon us to make that provision. It is a fact not to be disguised, that many men have grown fat and waxed rich upon the supplies they have furnished to our troops. They would like to have the war protracted until the Treasury was at its last gasp. What care these men for the distresses which befall others so long as their coffers are filled? I would not have our soldiers go starving through the rich Rebel regions of the country. Those who have broken the public peace should be made to subsist those who come to restore it. Such a proceeding would have a magnetic effect in restoring peace at the South. It must not be supposed that I object to laws to prevent pillage and plunder by the soldiers. – Those are all right. But the army must be subsisted upon the traitors according to the proper laws and regulations. If it were left to me to provide a plan, I would have the President make a proclamation, offering an amnesty to all who would lay down their arms within sixty days, and those who still persisted in rebellion after that should be made to suffer all the consequences of such untimed treason. I am tired, sir, of all these quibbles about constitutional provision, and all this talk about the Secretary of State having usurped powers and violated the Constitution in his efforts to preserve the Government. I know no limit in these dark hours of my country to the duty of every man to suppress that rebellion. I would have the President and his officers do everything for the preservation of the Government, but I would hold them all to account for a strict discharge of their duty; but now when treason fills the air around us, I am sure we can trust this Administration to say what is compatible or not with the public interest.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 10, 1862, p. 2

From Nashville

Arrival of Secession Prisoners from Huntsville – Outrages of Rebel Banditti in Tennessee.

Special Correspondence of the Chicago Times

NASHVILLE, Tenn., May 1.

On Sunday last an installment of General Mitchell’s prisoners taken at Huntsville, Ala. Arrived here on the cars. The crowd presented a motley appearance, being composed of jaundice faced fellows, who looked as if they had [obtained] their “rights” and been tanned in them. But it was not hard to discover in their cadaverous countenances that they were glad to end a glorious campaign as prisoners of Uncle Sam. The humane guard detailed to accompany them seemed to have their deference and confidence if not their friendship. After halting about fifteen minutes in front of the Rev. Elliott’s secession Female Academy now occupied by Col. Matthews, Provost Marshal, as a barracks for his guard, the 51st Ohio, they were marched to the Tennessee State Hospital – a spacious building with a considerable park around it. Thence, I suppose they will be conveyed northward. The prisoners were evidently more than contented with their condition, but our stiff necked and perverse secessionists drew as near to them as they might with due regard to their own safety, and vented their spleens in low conversation and fierce gesticulation.

Yesterday, five companies of Wolford’s Kentucky Cavalry, who had been scouring Overton and Fentress counties, in this State, arrived in Nashville bringing twenty two prisoners. They were composed of McHenry’s and Bledsoe’s Tennessee rebel cavalry, and independent banditti acting with them. Dr. Overstreet, a brother-in-law of Colonel Bramlett, of Kentucky, and Messrs Garrett and McDonald, loyal gentlemen, residing in that portion of Tennessee, came to the city with them. These gentlemen who are altogether reliable, state that marauding bands of rebels in those counties, and portions of Kentucky near to them, are daily committing the most shocking outrages on those suspected of loyalty. In one instance they caught a lad 12 years of age, the son of a Union man, bound him to a tree and with a knife literally split his body from the throat to the abdomen, letting his bowels fall upon the ground.

One of the prisoners brought in by Wolford’s Cavalry is a desperado by the name of Smith, who has been acting in concert with one Champ Ferguson of Clinton county, Kentucky – a scoundrel so infamous that some account of him may be interesting. When his comrade, Smith, was taken, he was hotly pursued and the party declare they hit him six times with pistol and rifle balls, and saw the dust fly from his clothing. – They are confident, therefore, he has a casing of some kind which resists bullets.

Some time in September, 1861, this man Ferguson went to theresidence of a Union man in Clinton county, Ky., Mr. Frogg, who was sick and in bed, and shot him in the mouth. As this did not produce instant death he next shot him in the brain remarking that he wished him to die easy. On the 2d day of October he went to the house of Mr. Reuben B. Wood, another citizen of Clinton county Kentucky, who was a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church – a very useful, popular man in his neighborhood, – and, having called him to his gate, shot him in the bowels, inflicting a wound which produced death in two days. Ferguson’s reason for the murder was, that Wood had paid a visit to Camp Dick Robinson. Assassinating loyal citizens has been merely a pastime with Champ Ferguson. His chief business, since the rebellion broke out has been horse stealing. Besides Smith, who was brought here, he has associated with him one Hamilton, of Jackson county, Tennessee, and nine or ten others. In March last, Hamilton and his associates went over into Monroe county, Kentucky, and assassinated in one day James Syms, Alexander Atterbury, and Thomas Denham, three quiet, will disposed gentlemen, simply because they were suspected of loyalty to the government. When Atterbury was shot, Hamilton informed his weeping mother that he intended to kill all the Union me he could find, and, if he could not find men, he would kill their boys in their stead. When mild Uncle Samuel catches Ferguson and Hamilton, what do you suppose he’ll do to them? I suppose he’ll send them to Camp Douglas, or some other place, to be fed on Federal rations.

Hon. Chas. [Ready], of Rutherford county, was arrested and brought to the city yesterday. Charles was in Congress once, your readers will remember him.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 10, 1862, p. 1

Cases of Hardship

On the 25th of December, the Tribune gave an account of Charles Spencer, of Syracuse, N.Y. who lost $15,000 in property in Hickman last year; how his wife and daughter were taken from him and carried away prisoners, and how he escaped and came to Cairo, where he was long suspected, but at last righted by Gen. Grant. Recently he went to Hickman, now in possession of our troops, where he found his wife and daughter, from whom he had been separated eight months.

A few years ago, Charles Green, from the vicinity of Lafayette, Indiana, removed to Scott county, Missouri, where, as a blacksmith, he was doing well. Last summer he was shot in his own door yard, in the cool of the evening, after working all day, and while he was holding his youngest child and singing to it. This was done by one of Jeff. Thompson’s men, who was his near neighbor. Yesterday, I saw his wife, with her children, on their way to Indiana. She had not been able to reach Cairo before. The sight of this woman called for sympathy and assistance, which she will get. She has six children, all girls but one, and the oldest not over thirteen years of age. By saving a little money which her husband had left, and by selling off everything the rebels spared, she managed for over six months to support her children, and at last to dress the girls in calico frocks and white bonnets. They were very neat and clean, but they had scarcely any other clothes, as she told me. The boy, a very bright fellow, five years old, and evidently her pride, was decently clothed and wore a smart military cap. Her husband was worth about $1,200. All that was left her was – her children.

A C. O’Donnel came from Iowa to Arkansas and was engaged in merchandising and general trading with a large capital, and he is an enterprising and wealthy man. Of course they took away his property, this partly was the trouble with him; and he started, with what house keeping and small valuable articles he could save, for Memphis, hoping to get up the river. His wife was sick, and had a young child. He was unable to get a house; he could not even get a shed. They lived out doors, but made a tent of bed quilts. The weak mother and tender babe took to congestive chills. He sold a note calling for $150 for $15, and his wife’s valuable gold watch for $30, Confederate scrip. It was difficult for him to keep what provisions he bought, because the soldiers would steal them, and they boldly carried off a sack of flour. He went up to Columbus, still meeting the same hardships. Here the little baby died. While they were getting ready to bury it, and he stood with his children by the grave, he was told that the cars were ready, and that he must leave. – He was obliged to go, and they hastened away, leaving the little coffin on the ground the grave still open.

He went to Mayfield, and there giving two feather beds, he got his [family] hauled to Paducah, smuggling through the lines. Here he sold his wife’s shawl. Then he went to work as a common laborer at $15 a month. At the end of the month he went to Cairo, and with six dollars commenced life again. Mr. O’Donnel is now a Commissary in the [60th] Regiment at Jonesboro’, Illinois. He talks bitterly, and this anecdote is here to the point.

During the Kansas troubles a gentleman saw an old acquaintance talking somewhat profanely in company, in the town of Topeka. This acquaintance was a Vermonter, and the gentleman had known him as a Methodist minister, very pious and exemplary. When their eyes caught they were glad to learn of each other, and to talk of old times. At last the gentleman says: “How is it that when we used to know you we all thought you a truly pious man, and now I hear you using very strange language.” The preacher promptly answered: “If you had suffered and seen what I have you would not be a bit surprised.”

School teaching is supposed to be profitable in the slave States. Albert Salisbury went from Tioga county, Pennsylvania, to Arkansas, and engaged in school teaching. Two years ago he married a young lady, a Miss Dickey, from near Bloomington, Illinois, who also had been teaching in the vicinity of Pine Bluff, in a planter’s family. Mr. Salisbury had bought a small farm above Pikeville, and laboring on it during his leisure hours, had created a beautiful home, and they lived in a nice style. Both were will liked by their neighbors previous to the war. – Of course his school was broken up. Of course he was ordered to leave. It is not an easy matter to drive a native of Northern Pennsylvania from his own farm.

Last August the Rebels approached his house through a corn field, and fired at him while he was eating his dinner. They shot through the back door, he ran out of the front door and gained the woods. He was slightly wounded in his shoulder. Toward midnight he came back. He wife lay dead on the bed, she neither had been shot nor beaten. Her husband knew how she died. Her ear-rings had been pulled from her hears and her gold breast-pin was gone. – She had not yet been a mother. When last I saw him he was a scout bound for Arkansas with the great expedition. With that terrible weapon, Sharp’s rifle, slung at his side and a black plume shading his uneasy eyes he looked as though he meant to get to work. He is not choice in his use of the English language.

Recently a well dressed old man of good information, and named Symonds, came to Cairo from his plantation on the lower waters of the St. Francis river, back of New Madrid. He is a native of Tennessee. He owned four slaves which the rebels took from him. As he came up from the boat he led by one hand a young and handsome woman, his daughter, and by the other a little boy, her son and his grandchild. The boy’s father and the lady’s husband went the way of all the rest. While the old man told his story he frequently extend his hand and stopped, because he could not think of the right word, but when it did come, the by-standers cried – “That’s it.” He has money and he is going to buy a farm in Southern Illinois. He hopes to get something from his wreck.

We gather from the receding waves of Rebellion, that there is no cannibal Island containing such bloody inhuman monsters as exist this day in the Southern States. Of course, not all the people are so, but enough are to frighten and to give character to the rest. They have been made what they are, by “dealing in the souls and bodies of men,” by whipping, hanging, and burning human victims. Nor are there ten in a hundred of those Northern men, talking of compromise, whom they would not butcher in cold blood, in their own homes, if they could get a chance. – {Tribune.

– Published in the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 19, 1862