The character of this War.
During the war of the
American Revolution it was said in Parliament, and repeated in the papers of the day, that the
British Government, by promising to the Hessians whom they enlisted the property in the soil of the country they were called on to subdue, had aggravated the horrors incident to a state of war more than an hundred fold.
The
Hessian, of course, from that moment, looked upon every farmer as an enemy, whom he was first to kill, and afterwards to plunder.
This nefarious policy soon begun to bear its legitimate fruits.
Upon the first march of the Hessians, they made the whole country a cens of havoc and devastation, and although the victories of
Trenton and
Princeton had a considerable effect in taming the ferocity of the Hessians it could never be entirely subdued.
The policy pursued by
Lincoln in this war has tended fully as much to aggravate its horrors as the conduct of the
British Government with regard to the Hessian tended to heighten the terrors of the Revolution.
Acts of conflagration, by a usurpation of power unparalleled in the previous history of the country, are to place the whole country of the
Confederate States in the market.
Not a man in all that region is to be considered as having a home of his own. Not a man is considered as owning a foot of land — or, indeed, as far as we can understand the matter, any other description of property.
Of this enormous property, amounting in the aggregate to thousands of millions of dollars, a very considerable portion is, of course, to be distributed among the soldiers.
But, besides this, the soldiers of the
Federal
army are constantly told that they are to have all they can take.
Being in many instances ignorant foreigners, who know nothing about the country or the cause of war, they convert it at once into a war of plunder.
They think everything they can take belongs to them, and no care is taken to teach them better, if, indeed, the case has a brighter side.
Thus everything that could aggravate the bitterness of the strife is carefully added, that there may be nothing wanting till the cup literally runs over.
It seems hard that we, and thousands of others who, like us, have lived here all our lives, whose forefathers have always lived in
Virginia, as far as we know anything of them, should be hunted from post to pillow by Yankees and other foreigners, who were never on the soil before in their lives, and for no offence, so far as we can understand.
But we believe in the justice of God.
We believe in a superintending
Providence.
These things will all be made to work right in the end. Of that we are confident.
