The Daily Dispatch: June 24, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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The crew of the Savannah.

--Our benevolent philosophers of the Tribune (says the New York Herald) are thirsting for the blood of the ship's crew of the captured rebel privateer Savannah. But this is a very nice and delicate question. The rebels hold a number of Union men as prisoners, and they are constantly picking up stragglers here and there. Are these Union men to be sacrificed in retaliation for the hasty execution of these rebel privateers? Or shall we rashly challenge in the rule of rigid justice against these prisoners as pirates, the fierce policy on the part of the Davis privateers, of the immediate hanging of the crew of every Northern merchant ship they may hereafter capture? No; the lives of our own people are entitled to some consideration. Let these piratical prisoners be tried and condemned if you please, and then held as hostages for the future good behavior of the enemy. Thus many innocent Union men may be saved, who would otherwise be murdered in retaliation.