We have never heard in civilized warfare of such outrages as those perpetrated at
Hampton and
Alexandria.
We are well aware that, in
European battles, after a desperate fight and the taking of a city by storm, defenceless women have been the victims of a fate worse than death, but we venture to say that no example can be found of a people going to war and deliberately preaching in advance such unspeakable brutality, and actually exercising it upon the inhabitants of peaceable and unresisting communities.
With the exception of the Sepoys, and the cruelties inflicted by the Druses upon the
Syrian Christians, we do not remember to have heard of such a scene of horror as that at
Hampton.
Every one knows what a shout of execration these same people raised against the
British General at New Orleans, on the strength of a report that before the battle he gave out as a watchword ‘"Beauty and Booty"’--a report which he indignantly denied, and yet these same wretches have publicly proclaimed the same watchword, and are evidently bent upon executing their hellish purposes.
But the day of vengeance is near.
Let every man of
Virginia prepare himself for that day, and, if he would secure that righteous retribution which he longs to execute, let him not give way to impetuous impulse — let him keep cool and self-possessed, so that when he does strike, every blow will tell upon the scum of the bottomless pit that is now cast upon our shores.