Murdering women and children.
It is the invariable custom in
European warfare, before assaulting a town which has women and children in it, to give notice to the
commanding General of the place, that the defenseless portion of the community may be removed to a place of safety.
Any other course would subject the perpetrator of it to a storm of execration from the whole civilized world.
It is well remembered that at the time
Vera Cruz was taken by the
Americans, in the
Mexican war, a report that
Scott had bombarded the city before the women and children were removed, filled all
Europe with horror, and won for him from the foreign press the title of ‘"Butcher
Scott." ’ Yet not a single instance has occurred, since the beginning of this war, in which the brutal savages we are contending against have given women and children any chance of escape from a bombarded town.
Burnside and
Goldsborough, after issuing a proclamation, in which they denounced as wicked and ridiculous falsehoods the statements of Federal barbarity to this defenceless class, and in which they proclaimed themselves Christians, and alive to all the moral and humans responsibilities of the name, deliberately, and without a word of notice, threw shells into
Newbern for two hours, when it was full of women and children, who were running about the streets in mortal terror, and fired into steamboats bearing off the helpless fugitives.
Such are the wretches, with no more discrimination of sex or age than wild beasts, who are invading our country and seeking to force us back to their accursed companionship.
If, in view of such deeds as these, the universal heart of humanity does not loathe and execrate, and transmit to future ages for their curses, the very name of these barbarians, then humanity has no heart and civilization is a dream..
