Dissatisfaction among the Yankee Soldiery
--A Memphis letter in the Mobile
Tribune says that in
Sherman's army the ‘"Irrepressible conflict"’ on the negro question is assuming a serious aspect.
It says:
‘
Officers and soldiers, of Democratic faith, daily grow their obstinate determination not to fight in the same ranks with Cuffy and Sambo, or to draw another sword in the abolition crusade to make a
St. Domingo of the
South.
An
Indiana and an Illinois regiment are accordingly said to have recently stacked their arms and voted to return home.
Most of the officers, company and regimental, resigned, and number of the soldiers marched through the streets of
Memphis in mutinous demonstration, free to proclaim their intention.
The
Colonel,
Lieut. Colonel, and
Major, with five or six
Captains of a Kentucky regiment, are also stated to have sent in their resignations and left for their homes.
The Missouri troops, too, are kicking against the pricks, and unless bayonet rule can quell the growing disaffection, which is not improbable, we may soon have a ‘"war of the races"’ between the two hostile components of the
Federal Northwestern army.
Reports of a little blood letting have already reached us, but I think they are premature.
One thing, however, I know, and that is, that the majority of the army at
Memphis are greatly estranged from the
Federal cause by the negro equality military bill passed by the reckless Congress at
Washington, and that a respectable minority, for the same reason, are ready at any time to mutiny and desert.
The very pickets around the city imprecate disaster upon Federal arms in presence of refugees who pass the lines when driven from their homes, and refuse oftentimes to take from these persons pistols,
bowie-knives, and other arms which they bring with them contrary to order, ‘"Will you examine my trunk? "’ said a refugee the other day to one of the pickets, an Illinoisan, I believe, ‘"No, sir,"’ said the surly fellow, ‘"I don't care, by G — d, if you've got it full of arms.
I don't intend to fight any longer for a Government that allows a d — a nigger to fight by my side."’ Such is the present spirit and temper of the
Northwest and its soldiers, who have achieved every victory for Yankee arms yet recorded in the calendar of this cruel war. But as a warning to all who were deluded by the
ignis fatune of the
Trent affair, I would suggest that we must rely rather upon our own strength than the weakness of the enemy, if we expect to win in this game at war.
’
