Order to Seize Southern Property

AUGUST 9, 1862.]

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

499

(Previous Page) and it is to do this by the way, as it were, while we are maintaining our Government and keeping our borders intact.

There is but one thing wanting to secure to us an easy and transcendent victory—and that is, a little stouter heart than we have displayed; or, to put it more truly, a little quicker appreciation of the scope of the contest. Let us love our cause with an unfaltering love, and we are already victors. But let us higgle-haggle, and shilly-shally, about a vast, overwhelming, universal crushing of the rebellion, root and branch, leaf and bark, top and bottom—an utter annihilation of it in all its symptoms and all its causes, and we shall be shamefully and utterly beaten, because the rebels have that irresistible unanimity and spirit, that absolute devotion and surrender of every effort and every interest to the success of their cause, which has been slower to show itself in us. They stake every thing, and maintain themselves. Let us stake every thing, and subdue them utterly.

Of course they will beat us so long as we furnish them with men and women to do their work while they fight us. Of course they will outnumber us in every battle-field so long as we insist that every able-bodied white man in the South shall turn out against us, and have no reason for staying at home. Of course our levies after levies will be exhausted while we treat the rebellion as something to be episodically snuffed out. The war has lasted a year and a half. We have spent thousands of lives and millions of dollars. It is a strain along the very fibre of our national system. If we think to beat with one finger or one hand, we shall discover our mistake by being utterly vanquished.

Why, then, do we hesitate to clench both hands and to smite with all our force? Let every lawful means of war be employed; let us hold all that a rebel hath, his life included, as an aid to the rebellion; let us understand that the enemy is not to be conciliated but vanquished; and then we shall establish peace and universal security, and not until then.

RUMORS.

THE air is full of rumors which no Lounger can help hearing, of new political combinations and movements. But there are one or two cardinal points in the situation which no political intrigues can disturb.

The first and chief of these is, that while the Government is struggling for its existence there can really be but two parties—its friends and its foes. Its friends are those who are for maintaining its spirit and form at any cost to any enemy. Its foes are those who are for overthrowing its form and spirit altogether, or for maintaining them under certain conditions.

The second of these considerations is, that any effort to divide its friends upon questions of policy of defense is an attempt, conscious or unconscious, to aid the enemy; for no body of men can debate fiercely and fight effectively at the same time.

The third of these cardinal points is, that in every great war of this kind those who are for maintaining the Government at all costs are necessarily the leaders among its friends, as those who are for over-throwing it utterly are the leaders of its enemies. In the English Rebellion, it was the King by divine right who headed one party, and the assertor of the supreme right of the people who headed the other. In France, it was the old regime and the rabble. In America, it was the supporters of the royal prerogative over the colonies, on one side, and the friends of the Congress that declared absolute independence of Great Britain, upon the other.

In all these cases the aspect of the parties was the same, because the quarrel was vital; and wherever men go to war because they differ, if the war continues, they will inevitably distribute themselves around the essential points of disagreement.

Now what is the substance of our quarrel? It is nothing less than the spirit and form of our Government. There are but two sides. One holds that the spirit of the Government is liberty, and that its form secures the peaceful development of liberty for every man. The other sees that the peaceful operation of the form will secure that liberty, and so, hating the spirit, it strikes at the form. The practical question that instantly presents itself to the friends of the Government is, shall we hesitate to strike at the system which is the cause of the insurrection, and which is a perpetual defiance of the spirit of the Government?

That is the question upon which the national mind is really engaged at this moment. The farther consideration, in what way we can most wisely strike, is another question. Are we willing to strike at all? Every moment's delay in answering the inquiry is an army to the enemy. Every effort to divide us into two parties upon it is a victory for the rebellion. Conciliation being impossible, are we willing to conquer, or shall we submit to conquest?—that is the present point. If a party plants itself upon conciliation, it concedes victory to the enemy. Therefore we return to our starting-point, that there can be but two parties—friends and enemies of the Government.

It is not assuming too much to say, that, if the friends of Mr. Thurlow Weed and Mr. Dean Richmond unite in a party-combination, it will include, with all the honest Union men who may adhere to it, all the white-feather peace-men, all the disloyal and doubtful men, all who secretly wish well to the rebellion, with all who utterly disbelieve the Democratic principle and wish to perpetuate slavery. It is equally clear that the opposing party will unite all those who believe in the natural rights of men, who hold that the spirit of the Government is Liberty, and who, to maintain the form of the Government, are as willing to free a rebel's slave as to take a rebel's life. It is no less evident that Jeff Davis and the rebels would heartily pray for the success of the first party, and as heartily hate the last. Nor is it at all doubtful that, if such a combination should be effected, that vigorous prosecution of the war which can alone satisfy the most earnest and devoted friends of the Government

of the rebellion against the principles of civil order and the spirit and form of this Government, by the most vigorous employment of every method sanctioned by the right of self-defense and the customary usages of war.

The vote upon these two platforms will show us exactly where we are.

AN INTERIOR VIEW.

IF every thing does not go for our side just as we would have it, we may be very sure that the course of things is not altogether agreeable for the rebels. They have been often in dire extremity, at least in their own estimation; and at the present moment, if they enjoy a breathing time, although they may crow lustily they can not crow away the facts of the situation. They know as well as we that the nation is only deepening and strengthening its resolution of subduing the rebellion. The prospect for the conspirators is not essentially changed, although our final success is somewhat postponed.

The following letter gives a glimpse into the secret feelings of leading rebels in the month of April last. It shows how precious Richmond is to them. The writer has, of course, been surprised and pleased by the course of events. But the depression of spirits which was universal in the rebellion at that time will never be permanently relieved. The letter was recently found upon the Peninsula:

CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA, April 18, 1862.

MY DEAR GENERAL,—Your esteemed favor of the 11th was received by me yesterday, and I hasten to answer. I greatly fear our cause will be lost should Davis and his advisers conclude to vacate Yorktown and Williamsburg, falling back into North Carolina.

The sacrifice of the Peninsula (thereby necessarily giving to the hated Yankees the present capital of our Confederacy) will most certainly demoralize our army to such an extent as to place us in a desperate strait. McClellan and the gun-boats will, I fear, succeed in opening their way up the Peninsula and James River.

I have just received a letter from our old friend Yancey as also one from Hon. T. Butler King, by the last mail from Europe. They both write despondingly. We have every thing prepared, so that we can destroy our property (although I doubt the policy of it) on the first approach of the Federal fleet.....My regards to Sid Johnston and old Jack Magruder. Yours sincerely,

W. A. HAMMOND. To Brig.-Gen. S. R. ANDERSON,

Commanding South Carolina volunteers.

MR. BATES OF THE BARINGS.

THE Union and Government of the United States have no more constant, and faithful, and frank friend than Mr. Bates of the House of the Barings in London. He has lived for many years in England, and by character and position speaks with great weight and influence; and from the first moment of this rebellion he has thought and said but one thing; namely, that the Government might, could, would, and should utterly overwhelm and suppress it.

These views of Mr. Bates have been perfectly familiar to his friends and correspondents in this country. But as he has been publicly denounced as a friend of the insurrection, it is but just to a most honorable, loyal, and intelligent American, who in the midst of sneering and skeptical foreigners has steadily kept the faith, to say that the statement of his secession sympathies is utterly untrue.

HUMORS OF THE DAY.

ESSAYS AND REMARKS.

BOOTS.—To get good boots, the best plan, perhaps, would be to find out who makes those of Professor Faraday, or Professor Owen, and employ him, if there is any such particular person; for a philosopher should be the best judge of the fitness of things, including boots. But there may be no such person; for many philosophers are accustomed to buy their boots ready made; true philosophy seeking to discover, by the shortest process, where the show pinches, and rejecting that shoe or boot for another which does not pinch.

Durability of boots is a quality undervalued by inexperienced or unwise dandies, because they never half test it. No new boot is so comfortable as an old one in sound condition. Old boots are like intimate old friends, and hand-and-glove is not more the symbol of intimacy than foot-and-boot. Never, if you are undesirous of corns and bunions, discard well-worn boots while their upper leathers are whole. The Emperor of the French and the chiefs of the British nobility would never have had occasion to attest the skill of Eisenberg if they had always made a point of having their boots forspieced, and heelpieced, and soled, and otherwise mended, so long as they would hold comfortably together. It is remarkable that the names assigned to different kinds of boots are mostly those of princes or soldiers, as Coburgs, Bluchers, Wellingtons, and Napoleons. The present fashionable cothurnus of ladies is called a Balmoral. But no boots are ever named after men of eminence in science and letters; there are no Macaulay boots, no Brunels, no Stephensons, no Liebigs, no Brownings, no Tennysons. Perhaps it is the confined idea of nobleness and distinction thus evinced by some leading shoemakers which has earned for their respectable and useful fraternity the too sweeping denomination of Snobs.

DINNER PLATITUDES.

Twice of soup is vulgar, but three times of soup implies that you must be more than double-plated with vulgarity. Such a thing was never known, not even at the Trinity Board, and Turtle is not the slightest excuse for your pushing things to such a vulgar length. An Alderman would really blush for you.

A soft answer turneth away wrath, and an invitation to take a glass of wine will frequently restore warmth between two friends where only coldness existed before.

No matter how plain your cook may be, so long as your dinner is well-dressed.

A few compliments go a great way. A little savory pate is quite enough. Try too many, and you'll find they'll prove heavy.

When the ladies retire from the dinner-table, it is not usual for you (supposing you to be a gentleman) to retire with them. In this instance the same law extends to the mistress as to the servants: "No FOLLOWERS ALLOWED."

A gratuity well bestowed frequently has a happy effect. The servant that is feed well takes care that his master does the same.

In the hands of an inferior artiste, whether an omelette turns out good or bad, is quite a matter of toss up. It is the same with a pancake.

Keep ill-natured people from your table as you would sour fruit. They are sure to disagree with every one. Avoid crab-apples, lest the Apple of Discord should turn up among them.

"Union is not always strength," as the sailor said when he saw the purser mixing his rum with water.

In a fight take your friend's part; at a feast let him have it himself.

FREAKS OF FASHION.

We have noticed a sweet thing in parasols. It is made of white satin, with a lining of pink arranged like the gills of a mushroom, the stalk being ivory, so that altogether it exhibits a pleasing resemblance to that elegant fungus.

FLUNKY (out of place). "There's just one question I should like to ask your ladyship—Ham I engaged for work, or ham I engaged for ornament?"

Judgement is a faculty which very few people have enough of discover they want more.

DOMESTIC INTELLIGENCE.

NEW INSTRUCTIONS TO GENERALS.

WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, July 22, 1862.

First—Ordered, that military commanders within the States of Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas, in an orderly manner, seize and use any property, real or personal, which may be necessary or convenient for their several commands, for supplies, or for other military purposes; and that while property may be destroyed for proper military objects, none shall be destroyed in wantonness nor malice. e.

Second—That military and naval commanders shall employ as laborers, within and from said States, so many persons of African descent as can be advantageously used for military or naval purposes, giving them reasonable wages for their labor.

PRESIDENT.

EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War.

THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC.

Generals Halleck, Dix, Meigs, Burnside, and McClellan have just had an interview at the head-quarters of the latter. The meeting between General Halleck and General McClellan is said to have been as cordial as the former officer's opinion of the Potomac Army was laudatory and satisfactory. General Halleck expressed himself highly gratified at the condition of the troops after their late severe trials in the field. A vigorous programme is said to have been agreed upon, and that immediate activity is to be the order of the day.

SUCCESSFUL CAVALRY EXPEDITION.

General Pope reports another successful cavalry expedition by General King, on the 22d inst., from Fredericksburg, in which our troops defeated the rebel cavalry near Carmel Church, on the road to Richmond, destroyed the telegraph line to Gordonsville and burned the enemy's camp, together with six cars loaded with corn. General Stewart's cavalry made an attack upon our troops subsequently, but were also repulsed, driven across the North Anna River, and pursued within sight of Hanover Junction.

STONEWALL JACKSON AT LOUISA.

Stonewall Jackson is reported to be at Louisa Court House, and Ewell at Gordonsville. The united commands are said to amount to thirty thousand men.

REBEL RAID IN TENNESSEE.

The Tenth Ohio Regiment, which was guarding the Memphis and Charleston Road between Decatur and Courtland, was attacked on the 26th inst. by a large force of rebel guerrillas under General Stearns and General Ward. Some thirty or forty of our troops were killed, and the road was damaged to some extent. It is said that there is a large rebel force at Tuscumbia, and that Colonel Forrest is at Carthage.

A RAID AT FLORENCE, ALABAMA.

The steamer Evansville, from the Tennessee River, brings the news of a rebel raid at Florence, Alabama, on Tuesday last. The rebels, it is said, entered the city and burned all the warehouses used for our commissary and quarter-master stores, and all the cotton in the vicinity. They also seized the United States steamer Colonna, used for conveying army supplies over the shoals. They took all the money belonging to the boat and passengers, and then burned her. A small detachment of General Mitchel's army was captured. The rebels then proceeded down the Tennesee River to Chickasaw, Waterloo, and the vicinity of Eastport, and burned all the warehouses which contained cotton. Another band of forty rebels attacked a wagon train near Pittsburg Landing and captured sixty wagons conveying commissary and quarter-master stores.

RAIDS IN MISSOURI AND KENTUCKY.

The rebel guerrillas in Missouri made a dash upon the town of Greenville, which was occupied by two companies of Union militia troops, who, being taken by surprise, were driven out and the town was taken possession of by the rebels. Governor Gamble had accordingly issued a proclamation calling out all the militia of the State to put down those troublesome rebel marauders.

The Guerrillas continue to annoy the people of Kentucky by raids in various places, destroying and stealing property. Morgan, however, has made a speech in which he confesses that his expedition has proved a failure.

REPORTED CAPTURE OF THE "ARKANSAS."

On July 20th it was stated that a scheme was on foot to capture the rebel ram Arkansas. The Granada Appeal (rebel) says that she was cut out from under the rebel batteries at Vicksburg by the Union gun-boats General Bragg and Sumter. No date is given.

GENERAL SHERMAN AT MEMPHIS.

General Sherman has assumed command at Memphis, in place of General Grant, recalled to Corinth, in consequence of the absence of General Halleck. It is understood that General Sherman will enforce all the orders issued by his predecessors, including the one requiring all the male inhabitants to take the oath of allegiance to the Government or to leave the city. On Tuesday last four hundred persons took the oath of allegiance, and one hundred and thirty received passes to go South.

EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS.

A general exchange of prisoners has been agreed upon—the basis, according to the Richmond Enquirer, being the cartel of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain. The Enquirer claims this agreement as an acknowledgment of the quasi nationality of the Confederate States.

FOREIGN NEWS.
ENGLAND.

NON-INTERVENTION.

MR. FOSTER, M.P., has given notice in the House of Commons that when Mr. Lindsay brought up his motion for the recognition of the rebels by England, he (Mr. Forster) would move an amendment pledging the House to sustain the Government in its policy of non-intervention.

COTTON FROM INDIA.

A dispatch from India from a private source, received in London, states that 115,000 bales of cotton had been shipped from Bombay in one week.

could not be expected. Would this be any thing less than disastrous to the great cause?

Let us all understand, then, that the question is whether the war shall continue—not how it shall continue. For if it goes on, it is clear that only the most stringent measures will secure us the victory. If that is borne in mind, we shall have in this State, this year, the true union of unhesitatingly loyal men who presented and voted the Union ticket of last year, which put the State of New York triumphantly upon the side to which she belongs—the side of an unconditional suppression of rebellion by a universal weakening of rebels on every side.

THE PLATFORMS.

WE are glad to be able to lay before our readers the two Platforms upon which the people of this State and of the country are henceforth to stand. One of them has but a single plank; and so, in fact, has the other; but it is hewn to look like several planks. Civil war simplifies all public questions. Eminent political joiners are understood to be still engaged in dovetailing the parts of the Conciliation Platform, and there is little doubt of the result of their labor. We present, first,

The Conciliation Platform.

Resolved, That we heartily believe in the irrepressible harmony of Free States and Slave States in the same government, of which our history for the last thirty years has been the faithful witness.

Resolved, That if the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence and of the Fathers of the Constitution had only been false, or had never been alluded to, there would have been no trouble in the land, and Southern gentlemen, our natural rulers, would have continued to govern us for the benefit of their peculiar institution, for the great glory of the country, and for the honor of mankind.

Resolved, That we most respectfully deprecate what we are constrained to call the erroneous views entertained of the nature of our government by those whom we must still be permitted to call our brothers, friends, and fellow-citizens—to wit, President Davis, General Floyd, General Wigfall, General or Colonel Pryor, General Cobb, the Honorable and brilliant, but for the moment misguided, Mr. Yancey, the brave General Jackson, General Johnson (who, we regret to hear, still suffers from his wound, and to whom we respectfully tender our sympathy, with the most earnest hope of his speedy restoration to health and to sounder views of our national system), General Magruder, the skillful but mistaken defender of Yorktown, General Lee (whom we can not but congratulate upon his military ability, although we are constrained to differ with him, respectfully, as to the propriety of showing it in the way he has thought fit), General Morgan, the romantic hero of the West, the worthy Hollins and excellent Tatnall, of maritime renown; the eminent jurist and profound statesman, Benjamin; the honest Slidell and the humane Mason, honors to our kind, whose unhappy detention of last season we greatly deplore; the high-principled Soule, now reposing in a seclusion which he dignifies and adorns; and the amiable magistrate Monroe, at present residing in the immediate neighborhood of the seat of his magistracy—these we can not but regard as still our most loving and loyal fellow-citizens, although, as it were, for the present, and in a manner, so to say, beclouded; and, with them, all and singular our Southern fellow-citizens of every sex who have shown, at Manassas, in Baltimore, and New Orleans, that innate chivalry and superior quality which have always proudly distinguished them from the mud-sills and fierce fanatics, whom, we regret to say, we have not wholly extirpated from among ourselves, and among whom we may name Ellsworth, Winthrop, Greble, Lyons, Baker, Putnam, and many more.

Resolved, That we venture to suggest, in all kindness and with great reluctance, to our many Southern brethren, that they are acting unadvisedly; that although they have been goaded into their present attitude by the most unconstitutional and exasperating and atrocious Northern libelers, incendiaries, and traitors, and have every reason that outraged human nature and broken political faith can allege to do what they are doing; that although they are valorous, and chivalric, and gallant, and every inch gentlemen, and, could not be expected to endure a Constitutional political defeat at the ballot-box, yet still that they ought to reconsider their hasty but perfectly natural action.

Resolved, That if they do not, we expect nothing less from their proverbial generosity than toleration of our difference of opinion in taking a military attitude; yet we beg most humbly to assure them that in agitating with arms our temporary and doubtless perfectly honest differences, we shall have the most constant and scrupulous regard for their comfort, convenience, houses, lands, cattle, and prejudices, and we hope most earnestly that nothing very serious will happen.

Resolved, That slavery is the most beneficent and peace-promoting system of labor for a free country that could be devised; and that we utterly renounce, and abhor, and despise, and (begging pardon of our sunny Southern brethren for using the word) spit upon the traitorous, black-hearted, renegade, scoundrelly scamps, the Abolitionists, who have irritated the lovely South, have plunged us into the burning pit of civil war, and who, we heartily hope and pray, may at the first convenient opportunity be banged, drawn, and quartered—or, if more agreeable to our sunny Southern brethren, wasted at slow fires.

Resolved, That on our knees we humbly beg pardon of the injured, and chivalric, and sunny South, and confidently commit our cause to its kind clemency and consideration.

The other is

The Patriotic Platform.

Resolved, That we gladly pledge our time, our utmost energies, our resources, our honor, and our lives for the speedy and unconditional suppression