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THE OLD GUARD,

A MONTHLY JOURNAL, DEVOTED TO THE PRINCIPLES OF 1776 AND 1787.

VOLUME II. AUGUST, 1864.-No. VIII

UNCIVILIZATION OF THE LINCOLN WAR.

WHEN Mr. Lincoln, on a late occasion, was told of the starvation and horrible suffering of women and children in some parts where the Abolition commanders have burned the wheat fields, and destroyed every pound of provision they could not carry off, he coolly replied, "yes, it is always the way in war." The insensibility, the brutality of this answer reminds us of a passage in the life of that atrocious butcher, Charles, Duke of Burgundy, who, when he had taken the town of Nesle, in Picardy, ordered all the inhabitants to be put to the sword, the commanding officer to be hung upon the ramparts, and the whole town to be set on fire. Then, calmly looking on these atrocities, he said to one of his officers, Tel fruit porte l'arbre de la guerre, "Such fruit does the tree of war bear."

War, conducted by cowards and assassins, does, alas! bear such fruit; but not in the hands of enlightened, humane and Christian commanders, do we hear of such barbarities. All such acts are just as violative of the laws of civilized war as they are of the laws of peace. Mr. Lincoln's Abolition ge

nerals have no more right to burn the wheat fields of the citizens of the South -no more right to destroy their pianos, steal their spoons, jewels, pictures, books and clothing, all of which they have done from the beginning of hostilities-than they have to commit these same thefts in time of peace. The ties which unite the members of the human family-the ties of universal brotherhood and of civil societyare not dissolved by war. The obligations which make up a man's duty to his neighbor continue in force, except so far as they are incompatible with the effectual use of the only means whereby an aggrieved nation can obtain redress.

An enlightened and Christian, or human commander, never permits wanton destruction of property. In the 20th chapter of Deuteronomy there is a passage in which God forbids this useless destruction of property, even in the land of his curse, the land of Canaan :

"When thou shalt besiege a city, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an ax against them, for thou mayest eat of them, and thou

shalt not cut them down and employ them in the siege; only the trees which thou knowest that they be not trees for meat thou shalt destroy."

Grotius and Francesco Victoria substantially based their theory of the laws of war upon this principle. The proper test to apply to any questionable act of violence is the inquiry whether it is, in any reasonable sense, necessary to the attainment of the object in view. Civilized warfare discards devastation and pillage, and all injury to private property, as instru ments for the accomplishment of its ends. Among civilized nations this has been the general rule for more than four centuries. When Henry V. appeared before the gates of Harfleur, in 1416, he issued orders strictly forbidding all violence to private property or unarmed people. It was his wise policy, and one which harmonized with his kindly disposition, to treat the French as subjects rather than as enemies. Great stores of bread and beef, and beer, provided at home, followed his army, and he allowed nothing to be exacted from the inhabitants, even when they resisted his pas sage, but bread and wine. Sir Harris Nicolas, in the Appendix to his Ballie of Agincourt, has preserved the general orders issued on this occasion. They prohibited strictly all marauding, insults to women, and unarmed men, and all wanton destruction of property. The soldiers were to remain in their quarters, "on payne of smytynge of his head that departeth." Some extracts from them, and from the ders" of the famous Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, may show us to what extent an English General endeavored

or

to maintain discipline in the beginning of the fifteenth century:

"A STATUTE FOR THEM THAT LETTE LABOUEERS AND MEN GOINGE TO PLOUGH.

(SHREWSBURY.)

"That no man be so hardy to take from man going to the plough, harowe, or cart, hors, mare, nor oxe, nor non other beste longing to labour, upon payne of death, and that no man gave none impediment to no man of labour."

It will be seen that this "order" for

bids, on pain of death, any soldier to disturb, even in the country of the enemy, any man who is plowing in the field, or to in any manner molest a laborer, or one who is a non-combat

ant.

"FOR FOREYING THE COUNTRY APPATYSED.

(SHREWSBURY.)

"Also, that no man foraie in the country appaised, but if it be haye, ottes, rye, and other necessary vitailles, nor that no man geve unto his hors no wheate, nor to gader non, but if it be only to make brede of, and if the said foraiers take any bestaill for their sustenance that they take reasonably, and to make no waste, nor for to devour nor destroye no vitaills, and also that the said foraiers take nor sell no oxen, ne no mykke keene, but small bestail, and that they accorde with the pitie upon the payne aforesaide."

This is an order for the regulation of foraging. It prohibits giving their horses wheat, or any grain used for the peoples' bread, or to make waste of any kind of victuals, or to steal oxen or milch cows, on pain of death. The principle laid down was to do nothing that should expose the non-combatant masses, such as laboring men, and women and children, to hunger and starvation. It is quite unlike the latitude allowed to the soldiers under our Abolition generals, whose march has been like a fire or a pestilence

*Appatysed. A country forced to subsist troops.

wherever they have marched. In mere wantonness they have burnt wheatfields, cornfields, and burnt up or destroyed everything that lay in their path, unless it was of such a portable nature as to be stolen and carried off. Such wantonness as breaking to pieces pianos has been encouraged; spoon and watch-stealing seems to have been especially allowed. Especially under Pope, Hooker, Burnside, Grant, Hunter, Sherman and Butler, every species of marauding and theft seems to have been not only tolerated but encouraged. Col. Freemantle proves that the Catholic Church and the priest's house, at Jackson, Miss., were fired and burnt down under Gen. Grant's own eyes. Col. Freemantle quotes a letter from a Mrs Ricks, from which we make the following extract, which will give a pretty fair idea of the manner in which the Abolitionists make war:

His

"I went to a Lieut.-Colonel, who seemed very busy giving orders, and asked him what he expected me to do; they had let me no provisions at all, and I had a large family, and my husband was away from home. reply was short and pointed-"Starve, and be damned, madam." They then proceeded to the carriage-house, took a fine new buggy that we had never used, the cushions and harness of our carriage, then cut the carriage up and left it. They hunted for whisky and money-their search proving fruitless, they loaded themselves with our clothing, bedding, &c.; broke my dishes; stole my knives and forks; broke open my trunks and chests, and took everything they could lay their hands on. They burned our gin-house and press, with 125 bales of cotton, seven cribs containing 600 bushels of corn, our stables, and six stacks of fodder, a fine spinning machine, $500 worth of thread, axes, hoes, and all other plantation implements. Then they came with their torches to burn our house, the last remaining building they had left. That was too much; all my pride and the resolutions I had made to treat them with cool contempt, and never let the worst come, to humble myself to the thievish cut-throats, forsook me at the awful thought of my home in rains; I must do something, and that quickly-hardened, thieving villains as I

knew them to be, I would make one effort for the sake of my home and children. I looked over the crowd, as they huddled together to give orders about the burning, for one face that showed a trace of feeling, or an eye that beamed with a spark of humanity, but finding none, I approached the nearest group, and, pointing to the children, I said, 'you will not burn the house, wilt you? You drove these little childeen from one home, and took possession of it, and this is the only remaining sheltering place they have.' You may thank your God, madam,' said one of the ruffians, that we have left you and your d-d brats with heads to be sheltered.""

After this fashion we make war. This is what is called "saving the Union," in the language of the savages who have been supported, even by the Democratic party, in this course of uncivilization and brutality. If the South did not hold us in detestation they would sink lower than dogs in the estimation of all just people. All Europe looks on with amazement and horror at our atrocities and barbarism. No wonder that Lord John Russell accused us of "introducing uncivilized customs into the code of war." Contrast the following order of King Henry V. with the customs introduced into warfare by Mr. Lincoln and his generals:

"FOR THEM THAT DESTROYETI VYNES AND OTHER TRES BERING FRUTE.

"Also, that no manner of man bete downe howsing to borne, ne non aple tres, not tres, ne no other tres bering frute, nor that no man put no best into vynės, nor draw up the stakes of same vynes.

All these orders were strictly enforced. The hanging of Bardolph for stealing a pix was a real incident of this campaign, and it occurred when the army was in its great straights of hunger before the battle of Agincourt.

Charles XII. was a great disciplinarian, and severely punished marauding and theft. "You take kingdoms," said a trooper accused of marauding, "why am I to be hung for making free

!

with a cabbage?" That was probably a hard question for Charles XII. of Sweden, to answer; but it shows the extent to which that great commander went in punishing marauding. It was a boast of Napoleon's, referring to non-combatants in an enemy's country, "Our presence is not felt." "If," said the Duke of Wellington, at St. Jean de Luz, "I could now bring forward 20,000 good Spaniards, paid and fed, I should have Bayonne. Now, I have both the 20,000 and 40,000 at my command on this frontier, but I cannot venture to bring forward any for want of means of paying and supporting them. Without pay and food they must plunder; and if they plunder, they will ruin us all." When the Duke crossed the frontier in this campaign, he issued an order in which he said, "I am particularly desirous that the inhabitants should be well treated, and private property must be respected in all cases." Some of his officers so far disregarded these orders as to permit their soldiers to plunder, and Wellington instantly removed them, and sent them home in disgrace to England, closing his sentence with these emphatic words, "The Commander of the Forces is determined not to command officers who will not obey his orders in a matter so essential to our success and the honor of an English army." These humane rules, so essential alike to the discipline of an army and to the honor of a soldier's life, were rigidly enforced in the late great Crimean war. The English and the French troops who marched clattering in the gray of the morn ing, with not over-filled stomachs, through the defenceless hamlets to the attack of Bomarsund, resisted the

temptation of the pig-stye and the poultry-yard, and bargained for their potatoes within a common shot of the fortress, with the peasant-girls who represented the proprietors of the soil. The Tartar villages, perched among the highlands of the Crimea, were respected alike by British and French, Piedmontese and Turks. Nothing was taken without payment, and the smallest thefts were severely punished. Omar Pasha, the Turkish commander, pursued the same course in Mingrelia.

Since these are the latest recognized rules of civilized warfare, can we wonder that all Europe agrees in expressions of surprise and horror at the barbarities we have perpetrated upon the people of the South, from the very commencement of this war? Our army correspondents, who have written for the New York Times, Tribune and Herald, have spread a knowledge of our brutality and barbarism broadcast over the whole world. A correspondent in Grant's army, for the New York Tribune, in a letter published June 20th, gives the following be tween Gen. Butler's Chief of Staff and a negro sergeant:

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'Well," said Gen. Butler's Chief of Staff to a tall sergeant, "you had a pretty tough fight there on the left.' "Yes, sir; and we lost a good many good officers and men." "How many prisoners did yon take, sergeant?" "Not any alive, sir," was the significant response. Gen. Smith says, "They don't give my Provost Marshal the least trouble, and I don't believe they contribute toward filling any of the hospitals with Rebel wounded.'

The amount of all this is that Butler's Chief of Staff and the New York Tribune chuckle over the account the ebony devil gives of murdeirng wounded soldiers. It is a source of delight to them that these negroes take no prisoners, but assassinate their vic

tims in cold blood. In any other country such acts would be punished with death; here, in this land demonized with the implacable, the hellish spirit of Abolitionism, they are sources of delight to all who keep company with the Republican party

Another correspondent for a New York paper, who seems himself not to be yet totally brutalized, writing from "Before Petersburg," of the date of June 17th, says :

"I am writing this letter under shade of a fine 'old oak,' one of a group forming a grove in front of the rural mansion of a Dr. Bryant, as I learn from documents found on the premises, and which is situated between three and four miles of Petersburg. The house, which had evidently been fitted up in a plain, substantial manner, is now completely stripped of everything of value which could be carried off by our soldiery, and is itself very much damaged-windows smashed, walls marred, and doors broken. What the soldiers could not carry off has been destroyed. I saw a piano-forte, which, marvelous to state, had been saved, although in a bruised, scarred condition,"

The correspondent may well be surprised that the vandals left a piano only slightly bruised, for, as a general thing, wherever our army has gone, pianos, and even libraries and pictures, and other works of art, have been ruthlessly broken and torn to pieces. The same writer, in another part of his letter, says:

"I will simply mention one feature in connection with the passage of the troops through the country which most attracted my attentron. This was the brutality of stragglers toward the inhabitants, and their vandalism as exhibited in reckless destruction of property. Everywhere I went, I found this class either preparing the 'captured' occupant of some roost' or 'sty,' or busily engaged making captures. Some action seems to have become necessary, not only to prevent the further robbery of unprotected women and children, but to prevent the decimation of regiments. Several houses I went into had been literally, so to speak, cleaned out.' In instances where the family had deserted, everything not portable was broken up, and little articles of dress, or furniture, which

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might have been useful to the negroes who had remained behind, were wantonly destroyed. In still other instances, where the families had remained at their homes, and these instances were mostly in the case of the poor class, every mouthful they had to eat was taken from them."

Had these deeds been done in the army of any enlightened and Chris tian commander, the marauders would have been promptly punished with death. It has been our misfortune, we may say our disgrace, that we have too many men at the head of our armies, who, by a long course of intemperate and dissolute habits, have blunted every moral sense. And another thing which renders these commanders still more reckless of the usages of civilized warfare, is the intolerant, implacable and brutal temper of the party in whose interests they are fighting. The more brutal they could be in the style of conducting the war, the louder praise they have received from the Republican leaders, and from the Republican press.

The following description of civilized warfare, under Gen. Banks, is taken from a late letter from the army correspondent of the Missouri Republican:

"When the gunboats were all over the falls, and the order for evacuation was promulgated, and the army nearly all on the march, some of our soldiers, both white and black, as if by general understanding, set fire to the city (Alexandria) in nearly every part, almost simultaneously. The flames

spread rapidly, increased by a heavy wind. Most of the houses were of wooden construction, and were soon devoured by the flames. Alexandria was a town of between four and five thousand inhabitants. All that part of the city north of the railroad was swept from the face of the earth in a few hours, not a building being left. About nine-tenths of the town was consumed, comprising all the business part and all the fine residences."

The scenes which transpired at this act of barbarity are well called “ap-. palling." palling." Feeble old men, sick wo

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