Notes and Queries.
[from the free Trader.]
It is a remarkable fact that while the male natives of the South have ceased to bear animosity toward the grim old warrior who left a black souvenir of Georgia forty miles wide and 300 long, the women, on the contrary, will never forget that Sherman burned their homes, and they uniformly refuse to regard him as anything else than an invader, “and a despoiler.” --Cincinnati Commercial.
The women of the
South would be lost to all decency and self-respect if they ever should look upon
Sherman as anything else than an invader, despoiler and brigand.
Sherman went beyond his legitimate duties to tyranize over helpless women and children; he went out of his way to exercise heartless cruelty.
Sherman ordered the women and children in
Atlanta to leave their homes within five days. The
Mayor of the city appealed to
Sherman for mercy, representing in piteous language the “woe, the horror, the suffering, not to be described by words, which the execution of that order would inflict on helpless
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women and children.”
Sherman replied in these words: “I give full credit to your statements of the distress that will be occasioned by it, and yet I shall not revoke my order, because my orders are not designed to meet the humanities of the case.”
At the end of five days the women and children of
Atlanta were expelled from their houses and driven from the city, and before they had passed into the
Confederate lines, they were robbed by the
Federal officers and soldiers who were sent to guard them, of the few articles they had been permitted to take with them.
The
Commercial complains that
Sherman was not banquetted at
Atlanta.
Had
Sherman possessed the decency of a well-bred dog, he would never have shown himself in
Atlanta after the atrocities he there committed.
A Northern view of the Prison Question.
Colonel John F. Mines, a well-known journalist, delivered a lecture in
Utica on
Life in a Richmond prison, in the course of which he said:
Heretofore a large portion of the Radical orator's method of firing the northern heart, lay in the plea of so-called barbarities on the part of the Confederates to their prisoners of war. Whenever a southern congressman rises in his seat to speak in behalf of his constituents, the cry of “rebel brigadier” is raised, and when a street fight occurs in Vicksburg or New Orleans, there is a cry of “barbarities,” and an echo of “Andersonville.”
That one word “Andersonville,” has been as effective as was the sweet word, “Mesopotamia,” when it fell from the lips of Whitfield the preacher.
The key to Confederate treatment of the Federal prisoners was found in the fact that they had very little for themselves, and gave the best they had to their prisoners.
While the northern officer in the Richmond prison had his baker's bread three times a day, and his meat twice a day, the Confederate sentinel had only his corn cake and molasses, varied by a little meat occasionally.
If the northern officer in his quarters felt the rude blasts of winter, his sentinel, clad in thin homespun, shivered like a leaf as the keen wind swept through his slight rags, and held out skeleton hands to the fire.
Their blankets were taken from their beds at home, worn by use, and some of the officers carried a little roll of carpet in lieu of other covering.
This was the spirit of the south.
The officer of our guard, a Georgian, once exhibited to the speaker, with pardonable pride, a sword he had put together from a scythe-blade, with sheepskin scabbard, and handle of southern oak. The men were terribly in earnest
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and ready to make any and all sacrifices.
They expected their prisoners to do the same, and thought it no wrong that a prisoner should go without the dainties they could not afford.
The hospital service was reasonably well performed.
Quinine and some other medicines were worth their weight in gold at times, and surgeons had to work as best they could.
The mortality was never greater in the prisoners' hospital than in those of the service.
This I know from frequent visits to the hospitals.
Such visits were frequently allowed by the Confederates, and in one case permission was given to attend a funeral of one of the more distinguished of the Federal prisoners.
“
M. Quad,” in some very fair and unusually accurate sketches which he has been writing in the Detroit
Free Press, says:
In these sketches
Stonewall Jackson's battles have been taken in reverse.
We found him first on the blood-stained field of
Antietam — almost at the close of his career, instead of at the beginning.
The world knows how he fought there.
We found him at
Kernstown fighting one to four--fighting, falling back, grimly giving way to fight again.
We saw him strike the
Federal armies right and left in the
Valley, and fill
Washington with white faces.
We found him at
Fredericksburg on
Lee's right; at
Chancellorsville in
Hooker's rear; at
Manassas behind
Pope, on his flank, in his front.
We have found him at
Gaines's Mill.
Fate waited for him before striking a last blow.
It was the hammer in his grasp which shattered the
Federal position.
Without him
Longstreet and
Hill would have been pressed back, routed, annihilated.
A Christian in faith — a child in his sympathies — a General who cared not for the world's admiration so much as for the comfort of any single man who followed him in his wonderful marches.
He had the courage of a lion and the heart of a woman.
The pomp and glitter of war were not for him. His banners grew old and faded and shot-torn.
His legions grew ragged and foot-sore and weary.
No matter who hesitated,
Jackson advanced.
Fierce in the heat of battle, because it was his duty to kill.
When the roar of cannon died away the groans of the wounded reached a heart which had a throb for every groan.
Partisans may keep their bitterness of heart, but the world has spoken.
The man whom they hate died forgiving all. Struck down at
Chancellorsville, amid the roar of battle, he was removed to die amid the softest peace.
Strong men wept like children when they saw
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that his last hour had come; but if they had a feeling of revenge down under their sorrow, he had none.
With malice toward none — with forgiveness for all, his life went out as his pale lips whispered:
Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees!
Did General L. A. Armistead fight on the Federal side at first Manassas?
In our last issue we pronounced
General Doubbleday's statement in reference to this gallant soldier “without the shadow of foundation,” and we are collecting the most conclusive proofs, which we will hereafter submit.
Meantime we refer the reader to
Colonel Preston Johnston's “Life of
Albert Sidney Johnston” (pp. 279, 280, 282, and 291), where it is shown that
Armistead was in Califonia when the war broke out — that he promptly resigned his commission as
Major in the United States army--that he joined
General Albert Sidney Johnston and his party in their perilous overland journey to
Texas--that he bore his full share of the hardships and dangers which those noble patriots encountered in order to reach the
Confederacy and tender their swords to the land that gave them birth — and that having left
Los Angeles on the 16th of June, 1861, and arrived at
Mesilla on the 28th of July, it was
as much a physical impossibility that Armistead could have been at Manassas on the 21st of July, as it was a moral impossibility that a man of his sentiments and his high sense [of honor, could have drawn his sword against his native Virginia.
