The suggestion of the Memphis Avalanche . . .

. . . to form guerilla parties armed with long range rifles to pick off the pilots of the National gun boats, is almost as frightful an expedient to stop their progress as that of the Nashville papers, which was to drill and blow up the rocks along the Cumberland to prevent their ascending the river above Fort Donelson.  If the Tennesseans undertake guerrilla warfare, a way will speedily be found to check that sort of business.  The Western boys understand “bushwhacking” quite as well as the rebels.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 8, 1862, p. 1

Late News From Richmond

The New York Herald, whose secession leanings has enabled it to keep good its southern connection, and to received southern papers almost as promptly as when the mails were run regularly, has news from Richmond to the 17th, some items of which are interesting.

“The most extensive preparations had been made for the inauguration of Jeff Davis as President on the 22d instant.  The ceremony was to have been performed with all the pomp and splendor that could be devised.  A military parade and banquet were to add to the attractions of the occasion, and a grand ball was to conclude the festivities of the day.  Now, however, all this is changed in view of the serious reverses that have happened, the ceremony is to be of the simplest kind, without any military display, without banqueting or feasting, and as to the ball one of the ladies said, ‘It would be disgraceful to be dancing and enjoying ourselves after such defeats, and while our poor soldiers are suffering.’  So the ball, too, has been abandoned.

“There was no intention expressed of evacuating Columbus; but it was admitted that such a course might become necessary.  It was stated officially, however, that there was no probability that the line of the Potomac would be abandoned, and there was no doubt expressed as to the ability of the rebels to retain possession of the whole of Virginia east of the Blue Ridge and Cumberland mountains, and to defend the Cumberland Gap.

“On Sunday last, the Spottswood House, and pavement in front of it were filled with excited crowds, discussing the news from Ft. Donelson and the critical condition of the Confederacy.  A prominent member of the Rebel Congress, whose relations to the Rebel President give great weight to his words, declared ‘that the day had now come in which the Southern Confederacy was to pass through the fire; that the events of the next three months would decide whether or not the Southern people are worthy of being an independent nation; that the fortune of war consists of alternate victories and reverses, and that having had their day of triumph, they were now about to experience a skillful and scientific a general as McClellan, made at his leisure, resulting in the formation of an army of 600,000 soldiers, with the discipline of regulars, must result in some successes on his part.  But these reverses,’ he said, ‘would try the temper, the powers of endurance, and the patriotism of the Southern people.  If they became discouraged; if their soldiers, tired of one brief campaign, refused to re-enlist for the war, they might as well abandon the attempt to gain their independence, lay down their arms, return to the arts of peace, acknowledge themselves fairly vanquished, and submit to whatever terms the North saw fit to impose upon them, but if their troops re-enlisted, and the spirit of their people remained unsubdued, the victories which the Unionists had gained would be of no advantage to the victors, but would only be a salutary lesson to the South; that the topography and natural features of the Southern States were  such that no armies however numerous and well disciplined, could penetrate them, or take possession of any of their cities, without being surrounded and cut off, either by regular or by guerilla warfare; that the tide of fortune would soon turn in their favor, if they would learn to rely on themselves alone.  But they must put forth all their efforts, and give up the idea of foreign aid for the present.’”

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 1, 1862, p. 2

From the Cumberland River

SECESSION FEELING RAMPANT.

Tribune’s Dispatch.

CAIRO, April 2.

A gentleman from the Cumberland represents the secession element as rampant in that region.  Since the withdrawal of the Federal troops, increased surveillance and violence has been exhibited on every hand, and the rebels are inaugurating a system of guerilla warfare exceedingly annoying to the few remaining troops.

Union men are again put in subjection to persecution, and have been compelled to take to the forests and swamps to avoid it.

The Confederates are again jubilant, and threaten to raise forces to attack our troops in the rear.  They think they are able to retake Paducah, and even talk of visiting Cairo while Gen. Grant is paying his respects to Corinth.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Friday Morning, April 4, 1862, p. 1

Specials to the New York Papers

(Herald Dispatch.)

WASHINGTON, May 20. – All are filled with the expectation of the great battles, at Corinth and Virginia before the week ends.  It is expected that these two battles will practically conclude the campaign, and leave nothing else to be done but put down the guerilla fighting.

The recent proclamation of the President begins to give great satisfaction to all classes. – The conservatives are satisfied and the ultras do not find fault.  It is manifest to all that Mr. Lincoln has taken the bit in his teeth and intends to have his own way.  Cabinet or no Cabinet. – The general impression here is since, the utterance of the proclamation, there is no one can approach Abraham Lincoln in popularity.  It is regarded as an evidence of unalterable firmness and true grit.

(Tribune Dispatch.)

A call is soon to be made upon the states for additional volunteers to the number of at least 100,000.  Careful inquiries have elicited the fact that our army is smaller than has been represented, even in official accounts – numbering not 300,000 effective men.  This fresh force is to be merely used as a reserve to be stationed at convenient point to meet emergencies.

The subject of lake defenses and lake commerce was very forcibly and fully presented this morning at a meeting of the New York delegation in Congress by the Hon. Samuel B. Ruggles, who appeared in behalf of the State. – the Principal topics discussed were the present undefended condition of the lakes and the great extend and rapid growth of the commerce on the waters, also the vital importance of the cereal products of the States surrounding the lakes, in furnishing the elements of foreign commerce, and consequently in swelling the amount of duties on imports to be received in exchange.  The two cardinal measures growing out of these discussions, and which must occupy the attention of congress, will be the opening of adequate channels from the eastern and western extremities of the lakes, the first to be effected by enlarging the locks on the Erie and Oswego Canals, and the other by the enlargement of the Canal from Chicago to the Illinois River.  It is hoped that these two great measures may be united as integral portions of one harmonious system, extending from the Hudson to the Mississippi, permitting the passing throughout the line of mail-clad vessels sufficient for the defense of these great waters.

The following is from the World’s correspondent, under the date of Baltimore Cross Roads, Va., 16 miles from Richmond, May 18:  I make the prophecy that Richmond is abandoned by the enemy without a fight, and that we occupy it within forty-eight hours, if not sooner.  This is the advance division towards Richmond – Cavalry are beyond at Bottom Bridge.  The enemy blew it up yesterday.  Little will it impede our progress, the stream is narrow, the water is but 13 feet deep and an easy ford.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 24, 1862, p. 3

The telegraph has already announced . . .

. . . the passage through the House, by a decisive majority (two to one) of Mr. Arnold’s bill abolishing and prohibiting slavery in the territories of the United States, also in all the dock yards, forts, magazines, arsenals, or other Government buildings, in all vessels on the high seas and “in all places whatsoever where the National Government is supreme or has exclusive jurisdiction and power.”  We hope this bill will speedily pass the Senate and become a law.  It completes the work.  It fills the bill.  It redeems in letter and in spirit every pledge made by the Republican party touching slavery.  When it becomes a law we will have done all we lawfully and constitutionally can do to confine slavery to the States where it exists and place it in a condition of being ultimately abolished.  We shall thus withdraw from it all support of the Federal Government and clear our skirts, as a nation, of the sin and curse, so far as we can do, and keep within the letter and spirit of the Constitution.  This is as far as the Republican party ever, in any authoritative declaration of principles or measures, declared their intention to go.  We never believed or claimed that the National Government had the power to abolish slavery in the States.  This is one of the numerous oft-repeated lies of our enemies.  The status of slavery in the States will now depend upon future events.  We do not expect it to be wholly abolished by wholesale confiscation.  But should the rebels protract the war by a stubborn resistance, resorting to the barbarous guerilla mode of warfare of the Spanish, Mexican and other half-civilized nations, it will inevitably result in the total destruction of slavery and the devastation of the Southern States.  It will thus result in the very nature of things.  The war cannot thus be prosecuted without producing widespread suffering and distress, “pestilence and famine,” throughout the whole insurrectionary country.  In such a state of affairs slave property could have no value and soon would have no existence.  Having done what we legally can do, let slavery be left to these causes and the madness of its advocates and supporters for its final overthrow.  We wash our hands.  We have done our whole duty – no more – no less. We are ready to meet the responsibility of these acts at the ballot-box – at the bar of an intelligent public opinion – before the world.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 17, 1862, p. 2

When the rebellion broke out . . .

. . . we were informed with a great flourish of trumpets by those who sympathized with it, that the Southern men were fighting men – Northern men were not – that one of the former could whip from two to five of the latter, and a great deal more of the same sort.  Now that we have whipped them everywhere on every field, upon land and water – now that it has been satisfactorily demonstrated that Northern troops will fight, and to say the very least, will fight as well as the Southern, these driveling tories have changed their tune.  We hear no more about one secesh licking two Yankees.  But they tell us now, you can destroy their armies and navies, but you cannot conquer them (the secesh).  They never will give up.  Instead of dying in the last ditch, as was first intended, the chivalry, it seems are resolved to enter upon a guerrilla warfare, burning their cotton and sugar, devastating and destroying their own country, hiding themselves amid the ruins, and stealthily playing the assassin wherever the can.  Let them try this kind of warfare and see how they like it. – Let us see who can play at it the longest  and who make most by it.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 17, 1862, p. 1

Specials to the New York Papers

(Tribune’s dispatch.)

WASTHINGTON, May 5. – The Select committee of the House on confiscation and emancipation has instructed its chairman Mr. Elliott, to report two bills, the first of which is agreed to by Noel of Mo., as well as by Elliott, Hutchins, Beaman, and Sedgwick, but opposed by Mallory of Ky. and Cobb of New Jersey, confiscates all the property real and personal of the leading class of rebels embracing somewhat more than are covered by Senator Sherman’s bill, who shall continue in rebellion after the passage of the bill, by another section property of all other rebels who continue such sixty days after the passage of the bill to share the same fate, the President is to seize the property but the courts are to [institute] proceedings, the claims of loyal creditors are made [hence] upon the property taken.  The other bill which only the republican members of the committee, a bare majority approve, immediately upon its passage the slaves of all rebels to be free.  Two additional sections to the first bill were discussed but not acted on, Mr. Noel being opposed to them.  By one it is declared that under this bill slaves shall not be held to be property, by the other provision is made for the enrollment of all loyal persons within the rebel districts who shall become free, upon such enrollment and may be, if such numbers are required, enlisted in the military service of the United States.  Both will probably be moved in the House.

(Times Dispatch.)

Gen. Franklin’s division which Gen. McClellan has ordered to West point at the head of York river, was on board of transports when the rebels abandoned Yorktown.  They were kept on board by Gen. McClellan for the very service they are performing and will doubtless be able to intercept the rebel retreat to Richmond, compelling them to give battle or surrender.  The main road of retreat up the peninsula is close on the bank of York river which will bring the rebel army within range of our gun boats that are conducting Franklin’s transports to the rear, there are four gunboats in the service.  McClelland [sic] has transports sufficient to forward twenty thousand additional soldiers from Yorktown to West Point immediately.  It will not be surprising if he captures the bulk of the rebel army and takes Richmond in a week.

The French Minister went to Richmond to assure the rebels that the Emperor of the French does not recognize them as a power among the nations, that England and France by recognizing them as belligerents did all that could be expected on the part of neutral governments, that the blockade of their ports is effectual, that they are fairly beaten in arms and their independence as a nation is impossible, that a continuance of hostilities by the threatened destruction of the cotton and tobacco crops of their citizens would only be a wanton injury to the commerce of the world, injuring France and England even more than the United States, and that a resort to guerrilla warfare as proposed, when their armies are destroyed would demoralize society and be practically a return to barbarism.  The rebels have been admonished that a cessation of hostilities is a duty they owe to themselves and to the world which all civilized nations will unite in requiring of them.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 10, 1862, p. 4

Confiscation

We suppose the Administration has by this time abandoned the ideas which formed the policy of our philosophical Secretary of State, in the early part of the war, that the rebellion would fall to pieces in sixty days – renewed at maturity, as bills often have to be in time of war. We suppose also that it has ceased to find Gen. McClellan’s promises of immediate and decisive movements available as collateral in Wall streets for loans. The Government must by this time see the necessity for putting its finances on some basis that will stand a protracted contest. Even if the war shall come to an end at the limit of another of Mr. Seward’s sixty day predictions, it is neither creditable to the Government nor safe to be shinning on financial shifts that must break down in a limited time.

We refrain from particularizing the financial situation of the Government, but every thinking man knows that its system so far is merely a temporizing one, which constantly increases the difficulty, and which must break down in a limited time. The expense of this war could not be born by the wealthiest nation in the world for any long time. The Confederate leaders know our financial problem as well as we do. They realize it more than we. It is the basis of their hopes of success, and will govern their tactics, if they are defeated in the great battles now pending. They calculate that even a guerilla warfare will compel us to keep up our immense expenditure, and that in a limited time it will break down our finances.

Thus our defective financial system and immense expenditure encourage them to hold out. It is impossible for us to continue the war unless it is made to contribute to its own expenses. Our President, and his philosophical Secretary of State and Congress, may as well look that fact in the face. We have no doubt that the Secretary of the Treasury fully realizes it already. It is an absolute necessity to the preservation of Government. That it is sufficient. We might particularize the financial situation of the Government to prove this, but we forbear out of regard to the public service. If any one in the Administration or in Congress is not aware of it, he had better be in some employment suited to his capacity.

But besides the absolute necessity, what could be more just than that rebels should pay the cost of subduing the rebellion? What more unjust than that the burden should be saddled upon loyal men and future generations? And how can a nation which loads itself with debt to the extent of its capacity, from its internal dissensions, hope to sustain itself in a war with a great foreign power, or to make its power respected by other nations? And what security can the public creditors have for the payment of this debt when the representatives of these rebel States come back into Congress to vote annually upon appropriations to pay the interest on the cost of subjecting them, while their own Confederate debt is disowned? This is only an additional reason for making rebellion pay as it goes the cost of putting it down.

At present the property of every known loyal man in the South, is confiscated to the rebel war fund, while the property of every rebel is sacred to our armies. Thus the rebellion draws more support from the loyal men of the south, than from the rebels. With this means their financial system may outlast ours. The result is that our war expenses are paid entirely and those of the rebels in great part, by the loyal men. A rigid inquisition has been enforced to find out and confiscate all property owned in, and every debt due to, the North. Every item that could be discovered was seized for the confederate treasury, and thousands of the chivalrous traders who went for Secession because it would wipe out their debts to the north, have been forced to pay them into the rebel war fund.

It will be necessary that Congress should accompany its tax bill with a comprehensive confiscation bill, that will reduce the cost of supporting our armies in the enemy’s country, and produce a fund to pay off the public debt. Other wise the people may begin to enquire if the rebellion is not cheaper than loyalty. But the question of confiscation in Congress runs against slavery at the outset, and so far that has blocked the way. There is eminent propriety in confiscating the property which, if not the who cause, is the means of creating and sustaining the rebellion; but slavery also furnished a means by which all Boarder Slave State Representatives and all Democrats resist any measure of confiscation, and so sacred is slavery in the Northern mind, that it has great effect in protecting other rebel property from just retribution.

There are, besides, peculiar difficulties involved in the confiscation of slaves. What shall be done with them? Some of the very representatives who talk of confiscating them, declare also that their states will not have them. The Government cannot sell them, nor transfer them to “loyal men,” as some of our patriotic Southern “Union men” propose. That would be sowing the seeds of rebellion broadcast among the loyal. Colonization is a very comfortable doctrine, but at best, even if the Government should make extraordinary exertions, it would only amount to the transportation of a few thousand or hundred thousand of the most enterprising of them to a foreign country, leaving the evil in its full magnitude here.

The negro’s fate has fixed him here, and here he will remain to work it out. They who make colonization a condition of emancipation might as well drop both ideas. When it comes to general emancipation in the South by military power or any other power, it must be by a power that will protect the negroes in the South. They are the foundation of its wealth, as laborers are everywhere. There is no country that could have such an exodus of its laboring population without ruin. Confiscation of slaves at once raises the question how they shall be disposed of, and we do not find any yet who are able to answer it an any way that will meet a general case.

We propose that the confiscation measure be relieved of this embarrassment, by leaving out of it the slaves. This may be reasonably done, on the ground that the confiscation of slaves will not help our treasury. This will bring the question of proper penalties on rebel property before our Border State Union men, and our Democratic brethren, divested of this danger to Slavery, which is so much more fearful to them than the danger to the nation, or than all the sufferings and sacrifices of the people. Let them be tried squarely on the question of confiscation of other property. Then the confiscation of the slaves of rebels can be tried in a separate measure, when such a measure is thought expedient.

We are aware that it is galling to the people who have sent their sons and brothers to fight this rebellion, that it should have the aid of black men, who would be our best friends. The feeling of the people of the north has also been grossly outraged that Northern soldiers should be used as a slave police in the South for half and whole traitors. But the Commander-in-Chief can stop the later practice if he chooses; and as to the other, the army could not receive without embarrassment any more of negroes that it could make useful to it. Should its marches be the dispensation of liberty to the bondmen, it might have the hole colored population of the south with it. The African foundation would drop from the kingdom of Cotton, and the bottom from the rebellion; but the same question would arise: What shall be done with the negro?

Unquestionably the army has the right to avail itself of the aid of any person in the enemy’s country, and the commander who does not would be responsible for the sacrifice of his army, if defeat resulted from the neglect of such aid. This is a right, according to the rules of war; but there is an act of Congress confiscating all slaves used for military purposes, which would furnish our army with all the negroes it could use. They might be of great service in camp duties, as cooks, hospital attendants, teamsters, guides, &c., and work on entrenchments, greatly to the relief of our soldiers, and to the release of a large number who are kept for the fighting ranks by such duties. The army might have its pick of the able bodied black men for these services.

But this it is the duty of the Commander-in-Chief to attend to, and his power is amply efficient. It is as far as any confiscation of slaves can go, until provision is made for protecting them in the country where they are, and where their labor is vital to its propriety. But the confiscation of other property can be divested of this question and of all the subterfuges which it furnishes to disloyalty. – {Cincinnati Gazette.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 3, 1862, p. 1