CHAP. LII.]

BUTLER'S FAREWELL ADDRESS.

347

joyed so complete protection and calm quiet for themselves and their families as since the advent of the United States troops.

administration.

"I hold that rebellion is treason, and that rebellion The principles of his persisted in is death, and any punishment short of that due to a traitor gives so much clear gain to him from the clemency of the government. Upon this thesis have I administered the authority of the United States. I might have regaled you with the amen ities of British civilization, and yet been within the supposed rules of civilized warfare. Your property could have been turned over to indiscriminate "loot," like the palace of the Emperor of China; works of art which adorned your buildings might have been sent away like the paintings of the Vatican; your sons might have been blown from the mouths of cannon like the Sepoys of Delhi, and yet all this would have been within the rules of civilized warfare as practiced by the most polished and the most hypocritical nations of Europe. But I have not so conducted. On the contrary, the worst punishment inflicted, except for criminal acts, punishable by every law, has been banishment, with labor, to a barren island where I encamped my own soldiers before marching here."

He has abstained from authorized barbarities,

and has fed the

"I have levied upon the wealthy rebels and paid out nearly half a million of dollars to feed 40,000 starving poor. of the starving poor of all nations assembled here, made so by this war. I saw that this rebellion was a war of the aristocrats against the middling men—of the rich against the poor-a war of the landowner against the laborer; that it was a struggle for the retention of power in the hands of the few against the many, and I found no conclusion to it save in the subjugation of the few and disenthralment of the many. I therefore felt no hesitation in taking the substance of the wealthy, who

348

BUTLER'S FAREWELL ADDRESS.

[SECT. X.

had caused the war, to feed the innocent poor who suf fered by it; and I shall now leave you with the proud consciousness that I carry with me the blessings of the humble and loyal under the roof of the cottage and in the cabin of the slave, and so am quite content to incur the sneers of the salon or the curses of the rich.

He has shown that

erned by kindness,

"I found you trembling at the terror of servile insurrection; all danger of this I have prevented slaves may be gov- by so treating the slave that he had no cause to rebel. I found the dungeon, the chain, and the lash your only means of enforcing obedience on your servants. I leave them peaceful, laborious, controlled by the laws of kindness and justice.

and that pestilence

the city.

"I have demonstrated that the pestilence can be kept from your borders; I have added a million. may be kept out of of dollars to your wealth in the form of new land from the batture of the Mississippi. I have cleansed and improved your streets, canals, and public squares, and opened new avenues to unoccupied land. I have given you freedom of election greater than you ever enjoyed before. I have caused justice to be administered so impartially that your own advocates have unanimously complimented the judges of my appointment. "You have seen, therefore, the benefits of the laws and He appeals to the justice of the government against which you have rebelled. Why, then, will you not all return to your allegiance to that government, not with lip service, but with that of the heart?

He has administered impartial justice.

people,

66

"There is but one thing that at this hour stands between you and the government, and that is slavery. The institution, cursed of God, which has taken its last refuge here, in His providence will be rooted out as the tares from the wheat, although the wheat be torn up with it. "I came among you by teachings, by habit of mind, by

CHAP. LII.]

imploring them to abandon slavery,

BUTLER'S FAREWELL ADDRESS.

349

political position, by social affinity, inclined to sustain your domestic laws, if by possibil ity it could be done with safety to the Union. Months of experience and observation have forced the conclusion on me that the existence of slavery is incompatible with the safety either of yourselves or of the Union. As the system has gradually grown to its present huge dimensions, it were best if it could be gradually removed; but it is better, far better that it should be taken out at once, than that it should vitiate the social, political, and family relations of your country. I am speaking with no philanthropic views as regards the slave, but simply of the ef fect of slavery on the master. See for yourselves; look around you, and say whether this saddening, deadening influence has not all but destroyed the very frame-work of your society. I am speaking the farewell words of one who has shown his devotion to his country at the peril of his life and fortune, who in these words can have neither hope nor interest save the good of those whom he addresses.

allegiance.

"Come, then, to the unconditional support of the gov and return to their ernment. Take into your own hands your own institutions. Remodel them according to the laws of nations and of God, and thus attain that great prosperity assured to you by geographical position, only a portion of which was heretofore yours."

CHAPTER LIII.

THE SORTIE OF BRAGG AND ITS REPULSE. BATTLES OF PERRY

VILLE AND MURFREESBOROUGH.

He then attempt

Encouraged by its successes in Virginia, the Confederate government ordered General Bragg to advance from Chattanooga northward. He executed his orders, compelling Buell to retreat to the Ohio. ed to establish a Confederate government in Kentucky. Buell was re-enforced; the BATTLE OF PERRYVILLE was fought; and Bragg, carrying away immense plunder, retreated. Rosecrans was ordered to take command of Buell's army.

Bragg, marching northward again, was overthrown by Rosecrans at the BATTLE OF MURFREESBOROUGH; and the Confederates, giving up all hope of crossing the Ohio, retired to Tullahoma. The sortie of Bragg had failed.

THE Civil War had already assumed its characteristic aspect. The Confederate States were completely belea guered and besieged.

The military condi

They were encircled by the blockade of the sea-coast, by hostile armies on the north of Virginia tion of the Confed- and along the entire line of the Ohio, by a patrol of national gun-boats on the Mississippi as far as Memphis, and by Farragut's ships from New Orleans to Vicksburg.

eracy.

I have now to relate how they made convulsive efforts to break through this line of investment, the stringency of which was daily increasing. The campaigns of Bragg and of Lee stand in the attitude of gigantic sortiesgigantic, yet only in proportion to the vastness siege.

he

The Confederate government was not without causes of encouragement. Conscription had re-enforced its ar mies; victory had rewarded its efforts. McClellan had

CHAP. LIII.]

THE SORTIE OF BRAGG.

351

been driven from Richmond; his peninsular campaign had totally failed.

Determination to

It seemed as if the time had now come for gratifying the clamor so importunately raised throughmake offensive war. out the South that the war should no longer be carried on defensively, but that vigorous offensive operations should be instituted in the Free States. The demand had become irresistible-" Carry the war into the enemy's country, and relieve us from its intolerable burdens."

and Lee.

Accordingly, as the proper initiatory steps, Lee was di The sorties of Bragg rected to move into Maryland and Bragg into Kentucky. It was supposed that those slaveholding states, thus far lost to the Confederacy, would be easily reclaimed; that from them the North might be invaded, and peace wrung from it in one of its great cities.

Lee's movement to the North we shall have to consider in a subsequent chapter. In this we have to speak of Bragg's.

Bragg was at Chattanooga. In his march to it from Tupelo he had outstripped the tardy Buell, who, as we have seen (p. 311), had been dispatched by Halleck on the 10th of June.

Advantages of

march.

It was clear that very great incidental advantages would arise from the march of Bragg's army Bragg's northward northward from Chattanooga along the west flank of the Cumberland Mountains, for not only might he recover the two states Tennessee and Kentucky, and threaten Louisville and Cincinnati, but he might compel the detachment of a large part of the force from the army of Grant near Corinth. The projected march of that general southward toward New Orleans might be half paralyzed by the march of Bragg northward to Louisville. The event more than justified these