Progress of the War.
Sacking a Southern city — Treatment of the women.
If there was any motive lacking to induce the people of the South to form associations for home defence, the following account of the sacking of Clinton, La., by Federal troops, should stir them up to the initiation of measures which may prevent their own homes becoming the scenes of similar outrages. The city was entered by Grierson's Federal cavalry about daylight on Sunday morning, and they immediately commenced searching for arms and arresting citizens. A correspondent of the Atlanta Appeal says:‘ They arrested the citizens and took them to the Masonic Hall, leaving none but the women and children at the houses, and when there was no one, the houses and everything in them were broken open and examined, and when anything suited the fancy or taste of the searcher he appropriated it. From some houses they took every suit of gentleman's clothes, not leaving the owner a change; from others they took as many shirts as they needed, and wherever a gold or silver watch was found, with a few exceptions, it was pocketed Many ladies breastpins found their way into the pockets of the 6th and 7th Illinois cavalry. Every dairy and cupboard was emptied of its eatables and every cook was employed in preparing them breakfast. From almost every corn-crib they took corn to feed their horses. The citizens around and near the Masonic Hall, where the officers were, were not molested, except the stores. Under the pretext of searching for arms they broke open every store and office in the town, scattering the goods and papers in every direction, and loading some of them in wagons. The windows and show cases were ruthlessly and needlessly smashed.
Some of the soldiers rode their horses into the stores and into some of the offices. While the citizens were at the Masonic hall hospital, many soldiers were seen riding by with boots, hats, and dry goods of various kinds, and large bundles of tobacco. The officers in command could not fail to see this, and knew that their men were pillaging the town. The men seemed to think that any amount of guns and ammunition were concealed in the iron safes, because they broke open almost every one in town, none of which had any money in them except one, and that but a small amount — Every horse they could see and catch, with every bridle and saddle, they took and carried off. A great many of the men urged the negroes, wherever they met them, to run away, and some one or two they forced to go, one of whom has returned. Some nine or ten went off with them, and during the week some twenty or thirty followed them from town. They burned the depot and machine shops, and the machinery of the Louisiana penitentiary, stationed here, which is a great loss to the Confederacy.
With pistols in hand, and presented, they demanded the watches and money from some of our citizens: They got some four or five gold watches, and perhaps as many silver ones. They even robbed an old negro man of Mr. F. Hardesty of an old silver watch.
They visited the residence of Mrs. Lee, and, presenting a pistol to her head, demanded all the money in the house. They cursed and abused her very much, and greatly terrified her and her daughter, Mrs. Batchelor. They put a pistol to the breast of Rev. Mr. Hamlin, at his residence, and demanded his watch, threatening to shoot him if they did not get it. They did the same with Dr. E. Delong, but neither of these gentlemen owned watches, and of course the members of Grierson's Western cavalry did not get them They paroled all the sick and all the straggling Confederate soldiers they found in town. They left about half-past 9 o'clock A. M. During their stay they were the most alarmed set of men our citizens ever saw.
A portion of the men who were detailed to guard the citizens, saw Capt. Hayden with a gold watch; when the citizens were dismissed they followed him to his home and presenting their pistols forcibly took his watch and chain. As soon as they finished paroling the citizens they left with their plunder. On Monday evening following five of them went to the residence of A. D. Palmer, about four miles from town, during the night, and inveigled the old man from his house some distance, and then pretending to have an order from Gen. Banks to take him and his papers and box to Gen. B., they forced the old man to give them his money box and papers, robbing him of six thousand dollars. A few days since they robbed Mr. George Keller, near Jackson, Louisiana, of fifteen thousand dollars.
They are now engaged in gathering all the cotton they can find and carrying it off. They go with wagons in parties of from two to three hundred, and take what they can find.--The negroes have gone to them by the hundred. Some of the planters have lost every negro, mule, horse and wagon they had, and in some instances they have taken all the provisions. These are the men that fight according to the laws of nations and respect private property. Every town they enter they pillage.
’
The speech of Mr. Seward on the fall of Vicksburg.
After Lincoln "took the music," in Washington, upon the fall of Vicksburg, Seward was serenaded, and made a speech in reply. He promises the immediate, happy and glorious reconstruction of the Union, though he seems to lose sight of the fact that the Confederacy has about 700,000 troops in the field who won't exactly agree with him. He said:‘ He had considered it the part of a patriot and statesman if possible to avert the condition of public affairs we had lately witnessed, and following the sublime example of Him who had died to save the world, he had prayed that this bitter cup of domestic dissention might be put away from our lips. The discord of our country was calculated to gladden the worst of despotisms, but the country would survive the shock it was called upon to endure. No nation can perish that has a spark of popular virtue left. The people are the guardians of the national titles and national greatness and prosperity. No nation can be saved except by the sacrifice of individuals. In the language of the Scriptures, we must renounce father, mother, brother, all for our country's sake; we must give up our treasures, our affections; we must make sacrifices, give up everything to be saved. For himself, he had surrendered all. There was not a child of his capable of bearing arms who had not been freely given to the service of the country. If he would not preserve our nationality he was here to be buried in its ruins. If he had to fall, he wanted to fall in the streets of the capital of his country, and be trampled under the heel of the assassins of its freedom and greatness. He had chosen for his file leader Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee. He was for this Union with slavery if it must be, and without slavery if he could have it so. (Tremendous cheering) There is now a new issue. A way with the dead past.
The future will developed who shall govern this great country. Neither wisdom nor virtue came into existence with this people. They will not die with the result of this contest. --Presidencies, secretary ships, foreign legations, presented no temptations to him. He was ready to put them all away from him. If his country would be saved he should never accept official position at the hands of his countrymen. He had been cens the prediction that the rebellion would bounded in ninety days. It would have been ended in that time — it would, in fact, have been ended before it was begun, if the counsels of true patriots had been heeded. It has been protracted by the hopes held out of foreign interference. It had thus dragged its slow length along, with blood and carnage in its track, through two long years; but in this beginning of the third year we had just attained the beginning of the end.
We have seen the stars one by one falling away from our national firmament, but now we are to witness the joyful sight of star after star, after wandering in darkness, returning to the galaxy in which it belonged. Missouri had been for a while obscured, but it now shines with redoubled brightness. Maryland had wavered; it is now firmly act in the national coronet. Kentucky had been almost torn from the magic circle; but its stead fastness was now assured. It will not be long before Tennessee will be numbered again among the loyal States, nor till Arkansas shall be again represented in the halls of our Congress. Louisiana had already asked for recognition upon the old basis, and the Old North State would soon follow suit. In a little while we shall witness the extraordinary spectacle of Old Virginia asking forgiveness of her sins, and even South Carolina, the source of all this mischief, would be sandwiched between Georgina and North Carolina and purified of her iniquity. We already see a pretended confederation divided into four parts by transverse lines drawn along the Mississippi river and the Southern line of Tennessee. When the war could no longer be put aside he had but one request to make.--He invoked God Almighty to inspire the people with virtue enough to vote for the Union, and our armies with courage enough to fight for it. But after all this conflict, this greatest, proudest, most prosperous of nations, must still continue to thrive If foreign nations would keep their hands off we should settle these questions for ourselves, and when the next Provost Marshal should call upon the people of this district, he hoped every man fit for duty would only ask where he was to be placed. If they needed any one to follow, old as he was he should be with these who were ready to lay down their lives for the preservation of the life of the nation.
’
Mr. Seward's Pen Nibbed again.
Mr. Secretary Seward's recent note to Mr. Dayton on the Polish question, published in the Independence Belge, is subjected to criticism in the Philadelphia Age, by the same hand, we presume, which has already given to the ponderous documents of that Minister a scathing review in a pamphlet entitled "The Diplomatic Year." The following paragraphs occur in Mr. Seward's note:Having taken counsel with the President, I am now able to communicate to you our views on this subject, for the information of M. Drouyn de Lhuys.
This appeal touched so profoundly the heart of the American people that it was only the deference felt for the Father of his Country, then at the apogee of his moral greatness, that compelled in to declare that, in view of the condition of the republic, of the character of its constituent parts and especially the nature of its exceptional Constitution, the American people must confine itself to advancing the cause of progress in the world by exercising at home a wise power of self government and keeping aloof from all foreign alliance, intervention, or interference.
They are thus illuminated by his critic:
Is has been often noted that Mr. Seward has an excessive tendency to the use of the first person singular, and an undue sense of his importance as one of the units forming what is called the Cabinet. It crops out everywhere. He scarcely ever, by chance, adopts the common and modest phrase; "I am directed by the President to say so and so. If he ever does mention that personage, he is sure to put himself on the same level with him; or, in Jack Downing's phrase, "a little ahead."Here, for instance, he says, speaking of the President strictly as an equal: "Having taken counsel with the President, I am now enabled to communicate to you our views on this subject." After a good deal of what may without offence be called "rigmarole" about the rights of man and political reform, and a gentle allusion to the emancipation of the serfs and the interests of humanity, Mr. Seward plunges, or soars, as the case may be, into astronomy and history in a mode peculiarly his own. As, for example, speaking of Washington's proclamation of neutrality, in 1793 redescribes it as having been made by the Father of his Country, then at the apogee of his moral greatness! On this we pause in absolute stupefaction. We actually scratch our heads, if Mr. Seward will permit so homely an illustration, in perplexity. We know exactly what Washington's position was in 1793, or thereabouts. He was sixty one years of age, at the end of the first term of his Presidency, about to be a candidate again, or just elected — as close to the affliction of the people as ever he was — and with his "moral greatness" as pure and fresh as ever. What on earth does Mr. Seward mean by saying he was at any sort of apogee? " "Apogee," our dictionaries tell us, means the most distant point reached by the sun, or any planet in relation to the earth, and "perigee" means just the reverse. If either phrase was fit for Washington, we incline to "perigees." So much for astronomy.
Mr. Seward made this statement in his note:
It is true that Washington believed that a time would come when our institutions, being firmly consolidated and working harmoniously, we might safely take part in the deliberations of foreign powers to the general advantage of all nations.
His critic denies the fact, and asks Mr. Seward's admirers to refer to the passage in Washington's writings which justifies the Secretary's assertion, saying: No word like it is to be found in his Fare well Address, or, so far as our memory serves, in any published letter."
Mr. Seward accomplishes another blunder in the following paragraph:
‘ Since that time many occasions have arisen for departing from a rule which at the first glance, might seem to be an inevitable cause of isolation. One was an invitation to join the Congress of the Spanish States of America, then just liberated. Another was the urgent appeal of Hungary to aid her in the recovery of her ancient and illustrious independence. Still another, the project to guarantee Cuba to Spain, conjointly with France and Great Britain. More recently, the invitation to cooperate with Spain, France, and Great Britain, in Mexico; and later still, the proposition of some of the Spanish-American States to establish an international council for the republican States of this continent. All these suggestions were, in succession, declined by our Government, and this decision was each time approved by the judgment of the American people.
’ Which is thus exposed:
‘ But this is not the only blunder. Mr. Seward affirms that the invitation to the United States to join the Congress of the Spanish States of America just liberated, was declined by our Government. Now it so happens, and Mr. Seward is old enough to remember it, that just the reverse is the fact, for the invitation, in 1826, was accepted by our Government, and ministers were appointed and actually went on their errand. This the files of his own department would tell him all about. This is blunder number two.
’ The criticism concludes as follows:
‘ We have space for but one other remark, and that we make interrogatory. Mr. Seward has, as we all know, published huge volumes of diplomacy, and left no corner of the world and no period of his times unilluminated. But it seems there is one dark cranny--one mystery, here obscurely hinted at, that puzzles us — We are quite aware, as he tells us, that in 1861 or 1862 we were invited to cooperate with Spain, France, and Great Britain in Mexico, and declined doing so; but we learn from this dispatch that "later still"--that is, within the last year or eighteen months--there has been made to us a proposition of the Spanish American States to establish an international council for the republican States of the continent. Of this we confess we were absolutely ignorant, and as to this we trust Mr. Seward's next volume will give us some light. It is a pretty comprehensive sort of a suggestion. The Secretary closes this remarkable document with a reason for declining to meddle with Poland which is "unique." It has reference to the rebellion, and evinces a consideration for our wayward sisters that is worthy of all praise. He really does not like to meddle with European politics in the absence of Mr. Davis, Mr. Benjamin, Mr. Mason, and Mr. Slidell, whom, as he long ago told M. Mercier, "he hoped some day to welcome back to the Senate." His language now is, "It would be still less wise to deviate from our traditional policy when a local, though we hope transitory insurrection, deprives our Government of the advice of one part of the American people, to which so grave a deviation from the established policy would be far from being indifferent !"
This is almost as cruel blood letting as that in the pamphlet already referred to, which objected to Mr. Seward's informing Minister Adams, last July, that the "last obstacle to the navigation of the Mississippi had been overcome, and that it was open to trade once more from Prince Rupert's Land" (!) (which is a thousand miles north of its sources) "to the head-waters of the Mississippi;" or that which maliciously suggested that Mr. Seward, in stating to Minister Harvey that "Portugal, in the age of Camoens," brought slavery into this continent, had forgotten that Camoens died in Lisbon in 1579, about half a century before the Portuguese traffic in slaves began on this hemisphere.
’
Intercepted Correspondence.
The Chattanooga Rebel publishes a letter from the Colonel Gilbert who broke up the Democratic Convention at Frankfort, Ky., a brother of Gen. Gilbert, of the Yankee army, with whom he is often confounded. The letter was part of the mail intercepted by Capt. Reese. The following are extracts from it:I am likely to be left behind to watch these infernal gape where Kirby Smith came through last year. They are talking about setting my command at work making the road good, so that the rebels can travel all the faster when they start to repeat the flank movement of last summer.
Gen. Carter has withdrawn to this side of the river, and Morgan's pickets are on the other bank. The horses of neither can be improving very rapidly; as grain is among the things of the past in that section. Carter is one of the most pleasant, amiable gentlemen I ever met, and I think it very wrong in Jeff. Davis to send such rough fellows as John Morgan, Cluke & Co to oppose him. They will be just as likely as not to pitch on him some day and "clean him out" in the most ungentlemanly manner. I think we ought to have Minister Adams complain to Lord John Russell about it, and have such unfair proceedings exposed to public condemnation.
No doubt if the enlightened British public could see this last Fredericksburg business in its true light, they would insist on Gen. Lee apologizing to Hooker forthwith, as it was all wrong for him "to pitch in" before Hooker got ready. Lee ought to have known that a great army like that could not move over five or six miles a day. We never can crush out this rebellion so long as our opponents are tolerated in taking such unfair advantage of us.
Sambo is soon to be employed on our side. I see that Gen Thomas has been organizing him into fighting material on the Mississippi river; and we white folks can "rest on our oars, " while nigger freedom and Southern independence fight the battles!
Were it not that I want to see the country about Chattanooga, I believe I would leave the service and retire to the shades of private life. I have heard that locality spoken of as the most desirable on the continent. There is another reason why I stay in the army. I should be afraid to live in Ohio during the coming summer and fall, the Vallandighamers are getting so bloodthirsty that they would massacre me certain for "snuffing" their party out in this State at Frankfort.
Germans on the Rampage.
The Chicago States Zeitung indulges in the following comments on the refusal of President Lincoln to allow Generals Sigel and Fremont to raise volunteers and march to the aid of Pennsylvania. This is one way of manifesting "unconditional loyalty."What Lincoln says about Governor Seymour is nothing but a miserable excuse--Everybody knows that Seymour, the intimus of McClellan will appoint neither Fremont nor Sigel. But Lincoln crawls behind him, because he has not the courage directly to refuse the prayer of Frederick Kapp and others. Equally untenable is what Lincoln talks about "confusion." It never occurred to Messrs. Kapp and others to ask the appointment of Fremont and Sigel specially in the state of New York. They want that both General should be generally authorized to raise troops, not in the State of New York alone.--Under the banners of Fremont and Sigel at this moment hosts of men, sager and thorough for war, would at once gather; but with indignant egotism Lincoln refuses this chance, although, thanks to the cowardice with which he deferred and again defers the conscription, we have much too few troops. The above is a gratifying contribution to what we said yesterday (in the Sunday issue) about Lincoln's behavior towards Sigel He would rather shamefully perish with his Halleck than behave by men who, without blame on their part, have drawn upon themselves the hate of his Halleck Lincoln a conduct recently has been such that no decide I friend of liberty has anything more to urge against his suicidal intentions. There would even be the greatest fort not for the country of Abraham Lincoln by his doings would not at the same time become to be the murderer of the republic.
Miscellaneous.
The Baltimore Gazelle says that Mrs. McAdam, living on North Calvert street, and Miss Amanda Featherton, who were arrested by the police for having made public expressions of sympathy for the Confederate prisoners, by waving of handkerchiefs and kissing of hands, were examined before Col. Fish, Provost Marshal, and ordered to be sent South immediately. Both of these ladies have reached City Point by flag of truce steamer. Mrs. McAdam resided in Richmond for several years.The 1st Michigan regiment, which went into the battle of Manassas with 1,050 men, and has since had recruits to the number of 640, came out of the battle of Gettysburg with only 87 men. Every field officer and captain was killed. It carried into the fight 220 men. The brigade to which it was attached carried in 2,100 men, and came out with 300.
While a salute was being fired in Champlain, N. Y, in rejoicing over the reported placing of McClellan in Halleck's place, the cannon bursted, killing two men.
