Southern "Cant."
A Yankee correspondent, writing from one of the counties within the lines of the
Yankees speaks of a visit he had paid to certain ladies, who were good Southern ladies, but had none of the ‘"cant"’ so common is the
South about the barbarities of the
Yankees, &c. It seems, then, that it is
cant in us to denounce the desolation which the
Yankees have brought upon our fields and firesides.
They steal every hit of property they can lay their hands upon — they carry off every horse, and every cow, and every sheep, and every hog, and every bushel of grain and sack of salt they can find — they burn house, and barns, and towns — they carry off unoffending inhabitants, men and women, into captivity — they run off all the negroes they can lay hands on — they murder our people when is suits their convenience or caprice — they carry on the war upon the principle of starving whole States into submission — and it is
cant to remonstrate against these things.
They, the manly, magnanimous Yankees, who distinguish themselves upon all possible occasions by plundering and oppressing the week and helpless, never
cant at all. We have never heard anything from that quarter about the ‘"old flag"’ and the ‘"glorious Union, "’ the former emblematic of more cruelty and cowardice than any other nation ever imagined, and the latter but another name for the
Almighty Dollar.
An officer who was left on the field of battle after the 30th of August, to take charge of some necessary business relates an anecdote of one of the
Yankees, quite illustrative of their whole character in this connection.
It is well known that the
Yankee dead, on that occasion, were very generally stripped of their shoes, our troops being much in want of that article.
A Yankee surgeon who had come over to look after the wounded, came to this officer in great indignation, and complained that our troops had plundered the dead.
Such a thing, he said, he had hoped could not have happened in civilized warfare.
‘"Do you dare,"’ replied our officer, ‘"to address such language to me, an officer of the
Confederate States?
Do you talk to us about plundering?
How many negroes have your troops stolen from the country around?
How many houses have they burnt; how many horses, cows, sheep, hogs, &c., have they driven off; how many barns have they destroyed; how many hundreds of thousands of bushels grain have they burnt?
Plunder! Why, sir, the veriest outlaws that ever existed could not have plundered a country more thoroughly than your countryman have plundered this country. --You have made the country a desert; ruin and desolation follow in your track, you are systematically endeavoring to starve out a whole population.--Your General not only does not discourage these disgraceful acts, but he virtually gives orders for them himself.
And with the evidence of these enormities lying all around you, you have the assurance to talk of civilized warfare and to complain that a few dead men are robbed of their shoes, which can no longer be of any use to them."’
This Yankee doctor represented the whole Yankee nation.
They all believe that they have a dispensation to violate every law of humanity, but they are exceedingly unwilling to concede the same right to anybody else.
It is ‘"cant"’ even to speak of the injustice done them by the thieves.
