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fix upon the North a brand of meanness worse than either Southerner or Englishman has yet dared to impute.
The mere delay in the fulfilment of this contract has already inflicted untold suffering, has impaired discipline, has relaxed loyalty, and has begun to implant a feeling of sullen distrust in the very regiments whose early career solved the problem of the nation, created a new army, and made peaceful emancipation possible.
Headquarters First South Carolina Volunteers, Beaufort, S. C., Sunday, February 14, 1864.
To the Editor of the New York Times:
May I venture to call your attention to the great and cruel injustice which is impending over the brave men of this regiment?
They have been in military service for over a year, having volunteered, every man, without a cent of bounty, on the written pledge of the War Department that they should receive the same pay and rations with white soldiers.
This pledge is contained in the written instructions of Brigadier-General Saxton, Military Governor, dated August 25, 1862. Mr. Solicitor Whiting, having examined those instructions, admits to me that “the faith of the Government was thereby pledged to every officer and soldier under that call.”
Surely, if this fact were understood, every man in the nation would see that the Government is degraded by using for a. year the services of the brave soldiers, and then repudiating the contract under which they were enlisted.
This is what will be done, should Mr. Wilson's bill, legalizing the back pay of the army, be defeated.
We presume too much on the supposed ignorance of these men. I have never yet found a man in my regiment so stupid as not to know when he was cheated.
If fraud proceeds To the Editor of the New York Times:
