From the North.
We give below some further extracts from late Northern papers.
Gen. H. W. Benham, who got whipped at
James Island, has been dismissed from the U. S. army.
D. A. Mahoney, editor of the
Dubuque (Iowa) Herald, has been arrested for ‘"discouraging enlisting."’
Gen. McCall has been relieved of his command to recruit his health.
Our disasters in Virginia — Wilson and Company Responsible.
From the New York Herald.]
The sentiments expressed by
Senator Wilson, in his speech in the Senate on the 28th of last March, in reference to stopping enlistments and reducing the army, were also the views of
Wade,
Sumner, and
Chandler.
It is likewise clearly shown, by the speech of
Mr. Wilson, that all our disasters in
Virginia were brought about through the intercession and influence of this band of radicals at the War Department, with
Wilson at their head.
Says
Wilson, ‘"I have over and over again been to the War Office, and urged upon the Department to stop recruiting in every part of the country."’ In the same speech he also stated, ‘"I believe that we have to-day 150,000 more men than we need, or can well use."’ With such representations as these at the War Department they succeeded in stopping enlistments; and now, when we want men, it is hard to get them.
With this proof of his guilt staring him in the face, he goes before the people of his own State and denies ever saying any such thing.
The truth of the matter is, this is but a small portion of the crimes that
Wilson,
Wade,
Sumner and Company committed against their country during the last session.
There is a long black list standing against them, which even
Wilson, with all his impudence and lies, cannot remove.
They acted as a secret committee, and like the Jacobins in the
French Revolution, undertook to control the entire action of the War Department and the Administration.
It was through their importuning that
Fremont was appointed to a department in
Virginia; and then, in order to give him a chance to do something, they secured the transfer of the main body of
Gen Banks's division over to
McDowell, just as
Banks was about to give to
Stonewall Jackson the finishing blow, resulting in a raid of
Jackson down the
Valley, driving the reduced forces of
General Banks before him.
Fremont was ordered to cross the mountains and intercept
Jackson in his retreat; but he disobeyed orders and took the wrong road, thus giving
Jackson an opportunity to escape.
Not satisfied with the disasters that they had caused in the
Valley, they commenced their attacks on the army on the
Peninsula, and did all within their power to harass the
Commanding General and divert him from the real work that he was there to accomplish.
The work of this cabal was the more dangerous because it was secret and under the pretence of friendship.
At every point their hate of
General McClellan was made manifest, and every representation made and every scheme devised that could be to destroy him and build up some officer who would become their tool and be controlled by them.
Like the Jacobine, with Robespierre at their head, they endeavored to build up their own faction at the peril of the
Union cause; and we now see the result.
From the brilliant victories in the early part of the season we have now to turn and witness the darkest hour of the
Union cause since the rebellion commenced.
Our forces reduced by disease and battle, and no men ready to fill up their ranks, because, forsooth,
Wilson and his associates stopped enlistments.
The rebels, on the other hand, have been all the time swelling their ranks and increasing their army, and are leaving no stone unturned to improve the opportunity now offered.
Unless reinforcements are immediately forwarded, and the thinned ranks of our army filled up, events will show that we have seen but the beginning of the disasters that will result from this interference and importuning at the War Department by
Senator Wilson and his radical associates.
They have, through their pernicious influence, done serious injury to the
Union cause, and it now depends upon the energy of the Administration and the response of the people whether this injury will be fatal or temporary.
Everything now depends upon the reinforcements to our army, and that, too, at once.
There is not a day or an hour to be lost.
The President is determined not to be deceived any more.
Our army is to be swelled to its proper size.
Men are to be thrown forward with vigor.
The rebellion is to be crushed.
The country expects every Union man to do his duty.
Shall we be the greatest power of the world, or shall we cease to exist as a nation?
Men of the
North, now is the hour to decide that question.
The Herald on the "Fresh Start."
[From the New York Herald.]
President Lincoln has the confidence of the country.
No man doubts his honesty or his patriotism.
Down to the recent seven days bloody battles near
Richmond he may, perhaps, have shared with the whole people of the
North the belief that this war in a week or two would be substantially ended; but those memorable seven days have convinced him, as they have convinced the
North and all our loyal States, that we had vastly underrated the numbers of the rebel army and exaggerated our own. But if, in anticipation of a crowning victory at
Richmond, the energies and vigilance of the Administration in regard to our army were slackened, the severe disappointment which followed has brought its compensating reaction.
It has taught us — Government and people — that while our war like means, resources, and facilities are absolutely overwhelming, they go for nothing unless we bring them to bear in superior strength against the active forces of this rebellion.
Here, then, government and people, we take a new departure, and enter upon a new campaign equal to the full measure of the great work before us. The whole strength of the rebellion is now staked upon its great army in
Virginia.
We have only to demolish that army in order to end the war. Granted that it is an army of three hundred thousand men; we see no reason why it should be permitted to hold
Virginia beyond the 1st of October.
President Lincoln has the power and the means to put to flight and disperse this defiant rebel army within the next sixty days. Congress has invested him with absolute authority over the men, money, means, and facilities of the nation of every kind for a brief and overwhelming campaign.
At this moment no monarch in Christendom, not even the
Emperor of
Russia, possesses a more ample range of authority than our modest and unpretending
President.
This authority has been bestowed upon him to save the life and restore the health and integrity of the nation.
With the free and full consent of our twenty-three millions of loyal people, Congress has given to
President Lincoln these powers, means, and responsibilities of a temporary dictator; and our loyal people look to him with confidence for the most beneficent results to the country and to mankind in the speedy restoration of the
Union.
The new campaign opens with every promise of success.
The Government appears at length to be fully impressed with the pervading spirit of our loyal States; and our worthy
President, fully realizing the dangers and demands of the crisis, and the means and great advantages within his grasp, is proceeding to business in the most satisfactory way. The great issue in his hands is the life or death of the nation and its popular institutions; and the reward that invites him on in his path of duty is a place in the affections of mankind second only to that of
Washington.
The President's Threat of Resigning.
[Dispatch to the Cincinnati Gazette]
The word ‘"resignation"’ from the
President's lips, in the interview about arming negroes-- the details of which, not withstanding the effort to suppress them, crept into print in a New York paper — must have fallen with startling effect upon the public ear. The dissatisfaction of a portion of the party that elected him, with certain features of his policy was well enough known, and a consequent feeling of general discomfort was but natural, but — Resignation — the word sounded ominous;. ‘"If the people will not be satisfied, I have made up my mind I will resign, and let
Mr. Hamlin try what he can do at it!"’ The response — from a Western man and an intimate acquaintance of the
President's — was not less startling: ‘"I wish to God,
Mr. President, you would! "’ More astounding illustrations of the revolutionary spirit with which the air is charged could hardly be imagined.
The Boston
Courier publishes a letter from a Chaplain to a Massachusetts regiment to
Bishop De Lancey, of Western New York.
It is dated at
Winchester, and we give the following extracts from it:
‘
My Dear
Bishop: How wonderful life is!
I am writing this in the office and with the pen of our old friend, P. W. When I tell you that he has two sons in the rebel army, and his venerable law partner five, all men grown; that both of them labored successfully to secure a Union representation for this country to the Virginia Convention of 1861; that the
Union majority at that election (for the
Union ticket) was 60,000, and that after the rejection of measures of compromise and the proclamation of coercive measures by the
President, and the call for troops from
Virginia to act with the
North, against the
South, 120,000 majority was given for the secession ordinance — and that he and others than east in their lot with
Virginia, ‘"sink or swim,"’ and that obstinate resistance and guerrilla warfare against outside occupants of the soll are determined on, in case of the ultimate defeat of their grand armies, you will understand how
Virginians state the case, and the general attitude of mind in
Virginia — so far as my observation has extended, and the historic steps by which, as they say, it has been reached.
There are here and there men who have stood out, at every sacrifice, (loss of property by confiscation and personal imprisonment,) protesters for Federal allegiance and recusant as to any recognition of Confederate sovereignty.
But they are the rare exceptions in
Eastern and
Southern Virginia.
There is a large class of men of moderate means, who cannot afford losses or shrink from the, who greatly prefer the quiet and security of Federal rule, but quiet and security being their object, they remain neutral or compliant under the powers
de facto, of whichever side.
There is no civil government in action from
Harper's Ferry, here — even the last class falls to furnish volunteers to take the office of
Justices of the Peace.* Crime of all sorts, therefore, except it be by soldiers subject to court martial, has a holiday, and horse stealing and robbery are the order of the day and night.
The presence of troops from distant States (especially those of one division) has exasperated at any rate — you may believe — and the intemperate exultations here of soldiers over victories in which sons, husbands, and brothers of those who listen have fallen, tends but little to soothe or to reunite.
A chaplain, and one of our church, preaching in the open air in the heart of the town on a recent Sunday, after his service, announced to the assembled troops the recent victories in detail, and then called for ‘"three cheers and a tiger and
Yankee Doodle."’ He is not a great man, you will perceive; he meant it all as very well and loyal, but he knew not what he did, for the battles had been between brothers, over whose biers, and in presence of the mourners on one side, he asked wild soldiers to ‘"give a tiger."’
As I thrank away into a corner of a church on that day, a stranger in my mother's house, and thanked God for the upholding of and offered myself a willing sacrifice on the of constitutional allegiance, ‘"the victory was turned to me into mourning."’ for better ones than Absalom were slain in battle; and I had been sent sixteen miles from the post headquarters the day before to carry to the widow and orphans of a Virginian the tidings of the fall in battle of husband and father, the assurance of unmolested quiet for the present to the home thus made desolate, to offer a soldier's sympathy, and to suggest the consolations of religion!
The problem, my dear
Bishop, of military conquest and occupation is simple and almost solved; but the second problem, that of healing, restoration, and reconstruction, would appal the stoutest heart, who well understands its conditions and terms, were it not for trust in His Almighty wisdom, mercy, and power, to whom so many faithful hearts on both sides have turned and supplicated throughout this entire struggle.
That He brings good out of evil, and light out of darkness, and that his methods are unsearchable, is an infinite stay and comfort.
The condition of
Virginia is sad now. Armies are everywhere.
Here is a Northern army — strangers; towards the
Rappahannock,
Jackson's forces; and, of course, where both meet, infinite desolation.
Husbands and sons are away with the
Southern army; aged men, the infirm, the youth in boyhood, and women, and what servants have not fled, are all that remain.
You may imagine the feelings that prevail in the interior of families, and you will not wonder that sadness rules the hour now. But you remember our stay in
Richmond in 1859, and the excitement of
John Brown's raid then.
In the midst of her fatherless children, the widow whose bereavement I have mentioned said to me, as she covered her face with her hands, ‘"Why, my dear sir, we have not seen sunshine in
Virginia since
John Brown entered it. People forget this.
This war is not the beginning.
It has been home guard, and
night-watch, and patrol, and rumor of insurrection, ever since that day."’
’
* * * * *
P. S.--I have just taken the precaution to read over what I have written above to a venerable Virginian, now quietly attending to the duties of his calling here.
He is one who may be truly characterized as man of large acquaintance and wide observation; of a calm and dispassionate temper, and who has never taken part in politics.
He attests the correctness of my statement, (the figures he has supplied.) and thanks me for the spirit which he thinks my letter exhibits.
He asks me to add what follows as an old man's record.
(I write from his dictation, and desire to open up thus to others the mind of the class he represents.)
"That notwithstanding the reverses of the
Southern armies, and the occupation of their cities, and apparent defeat, the spirit of resistance throughout the entire
South was never more obstinate or determined, or more ready to make sacrifices; and that coerced harmony, as it is a contradiction in terms, so it will be found to be impracticable in fact.
‘"That, on the other hand, more loyal hearts never beat than those who struggled in hope of Union before the ordinance of secession — more loyal eloquence never moved assemblies than that which sought to sway the mind of
Virginia before the
Convention; and that a return to the methods of persuasion and treaty, to the frank and generous consultations of representatives in counsel, are as open as ever, and more hopeful than ever, and are the only methods, and these conditioned upon the withdrawal of armies and the substitution of deputies in conference."’
I give my aged friend full record for his view; but I add that the withdrawal of armies before the supremacy of Federal rule is acknowledged and in some way guaranteed, would be an abandonment of the reason of the war, waged only to assert and vindicate the rightfulness of that supremacy, and to risk the chances of its renewal.
That is, therefore, impossible.
But I have good reasons for the cheering belief that such guarantees will be met in the proper quarter with a generous promptness and magnanimity that will contradict the apprehensions of suspicion and distrust, and change aversion into applause.
1.--A sermon was preached by an army chaplain in
Charlestown, the scene of the execution of
John Brown for violation of law, sedition, and murder, on a Sunday in April, on some text enjoining ‘"the mission of proclaiming liberty;"’ and the hymn given out and sung was--
‘"
John Brown's body hangs dangling in the air, Sing glory, glory, hallelujah"’
[It is a satisfaction to know, as I do, that the preacher was rebuked for it by the
Lieutenant Colonel of his regiment.]
--Another instance was authentically reported to me — a sermon preached in a town near a large camp of occupation.
The preacher recognized and proclaimed in this case, too, the mission of freeing the negroes — told them they were free, and that as the property amassed by their masters was the fruit of the labors of the blacks, these had the bastille to it, and should help themselves.
[No doubt I shall find in this case, also, in in queries which I have instituted, that the army authorities to whom the preacher was amenable, rebuked his seditious and unlawful utterance.
But who can measure the effect of such demonstrations when received as an exponent of the design and spirit of the war?]
