To-day northern papers are received containing Burnside's General order No. 38, for the benefit of Ohio's devilish democracy. We deem it a good cure for treason and traitors, and we all hope that it will be enforced to the letter, and that the leading light of modern democracy, C. L. Vallandigham, will become a victim to its force. All hail, Burnside! as the honest general who dares to do right—who dares to prosecute the war with an earnest determination—who dares to punish traitors in the north! They may tell us the war is a failure—that the great Union is declining—that the gallant dead have died in vain—that they have closed their eyes in death, dishonored men; they may say, as has been said by Miller, in the Illinois Legislative chamber, that the time will come when the surviving Union soldier will be ashamed to hold up his head and say he took a part in the war for the Union, but we catch the spirit of prophecy and say that the time will come when modern democracy as a party will be branded as a gigantic liar-that the time will come when the children of the soldiers and sailors who battled on land and sea for the republican idea, will, in the language of Grace Greenwood, date their rights to nobility back to grander battlefields than Agincourt or Bannockburn. Many a coat of arms in the future will have one sleeve hanging empty. We may picture to ourselves a group of noble young lads, some ten years hence, thus proudly accounting for their orphanage—an orphanage which the country should see to it should not become destitue. Says one, my father fell fighting with Wallace in the Wilderness of Shiloh, says another, my father fought with Hooker, when his guns flashed flame in midnight darkness over Lookout Mountain; another, my father suffered martyrdom in Libby Prison; and another, my father was rocked to sleep beneath the waves in the iron cradle of the monitor. Then there will be hapless lads who will steal away and in the bitterness of soul will say, alas, for me! I have no such gloryings; my father was a rebel who fought against the flag of the Union; and there will be another class still more unfortunate, who will utter the pitying wail, oh! my God, help me! my father was a cowardly northern copperhead, who denounced the defenders of the Union as hirelings and vandals. Yes, and the time will come when the record of modern democracy in these years of war will be sought to be buried and consigned to the "dead past,” when this treasonable faction will pander to those men who saved the Union when they sought its life. They will feign to drop tears over the graves of those they murdered, and utter hypocritical words of sympathy to the widows and orphans whom they insulted when the Republic was passing through the long night of war. Soldiers of the Union, mark the prophecy.
The following extract from a communication written by a soldier of the Seventh, may not be inappropriate to these pages:
- Letter from the 7th Illinois Infantry, May 1, 1863
To-day we were shown
a letter from one of the lights of modern democracy in Logan County, urging a
soldier to desert the hireling abolition army, and not disgrace his friends any
longer, telling him that the war was a failure, and for him to return to the house
of his friends. The reply was made, “I am a man, and no consideration offered
by modern democracy can tempt me to desert the banner of freedom. What!
disgrace my friends! I to-day disown all who would, like you, urge me to barter
away my manhood. You tell me the war is a failure; you evidently base your
judgment upon its prolongation. This does not discourage me; I remember that it
took eight years to establish the first independence, but what would twenty
years be in permanently establishing a government that may in time
revolutionize the civilized world? When you and your traitor friends,
conscience stricken and seared with crime and sin, shall, as an apt
illustration of latter-day so-called democracy, go down to the grave, over your
head should be written, 'Here sleeps a modern democrat; and may the winds of
heaven never kiss his solitary abode, nor the worms feed upon that flesh that
will in all coming time be the scorn and derision of mankind; may he not be
permitted to come forth in the resurrection morning, but may he sleep on,
unmourned and forgotten forever.' In [conclusion], I would urge loyal men
everywhere not to listen to the clamor for peace and compromise, for that means
a withdrawal of the Union armies and to give up the struggle and acknowledge
the independence of the south. From the commencement of the war up to the
present time, we, the soldiers of Illinois, have helped to fight the great
battles for the Union—we have seen our comrades bleed and die-we have trod in
their heart's blood-have passed through many sleepless nights, watching and
waiting, but the war still lingers on, the south with its wild legions still
struggles for dominion, and yet while shouts of victory ascend from crimson
battle-fields, designing men would have us compromise, would have us concede to
the murderers and assassins. Shall we do it? The loyal people say no; a voice
from every battle field, and from the waters where moved the men of war, cries
no. But may a morning with a conquered peace soon dawn, when we can behold our
flag floating over every sea, the pride of a victorious people and the envy of
the world.
