"I don't care whether you do or not, for I've got a wooden leg."
New Use of Blood-hounds.
One fine summer's Sunday afternoon, as a steamboat was stopping at a landing on the Mississippi to take in wood, the passengers were surprised to see two or three young, athletic negroes perched upon a tree like monkeys, and about as many blood-hounds underneath, barking and yelping, and jumping up in vain endeavors to seize the frightened negroes. The overseer was standing by, encouraging the dogs, and several bystanders were looking on, enjoying the sport. It was only the owner of some blood-hounds training his dogs, and keeping them in practice, so as to be able to hunt down the runaways, who often secrete themselves in the woods. It was thought fine sport, and useful, too, in its way, ten years ago.
But now the same hounds are being made use of, all through Alabama and Mississippi, and, we have no doubt, in other of the Southern States, to hunt down white men hiding in the woods to escape the fierce conscription act, which is now seizing about every man under sixty years of age able to carry a gun. Nor is this the worst. It is found that those camped out are supplied with food brought them by their children, who go out apparently to play in the woods, and then slip off and carry provisions to their fathers. To meet this exigency, blood-hounds are now employed to follow these little children on their pious errands, and the other day a beautiful little girl was thus chased and overtaken in the woods, and there torn in pieces, alone and unaided, by the trained blood-hounds of Jefferson Davis! Nor is this a solitary case. It appears that many white men, women, and children have thus been sacrificed, in order to carry out the conscription act in all its terrors.
In a large number of cases, those who are thus hunted down are such as have in some way exhibited Union proclivities; for, although such have ceased to offer any opposition to the rebels, they do not like taking up arms against the flag of the Union, to which many of them have, in former days, sworn allegiance. These persons, and all suspected, are especially marked out as objects of the conscription and the blood-hound, be their ages and fighting qualities what they may. And these are the men hunted down with dogs, and their wives and their children, if they attempt to follow them. There are, however, many men not Unionists, and willing to contribute of their property to any amount to support the rebels, but now being drawn into the conscription, or, having tasted the desperate neglects of the rebel service, have deserted, and will not again take up arms. Their wives are ladies, most delicate and tender, and their children brought up with a refinement and delicacy of the most perfect character, until this war began. And these are the women that now have to wander alone in the woods, in search of their husbands and brothers and sons; and these are the little girls, who, going to carry food to their relatives, are liable at any moment to be overtaken by swift hounds, let loose and set upon their track by the agents of Jefferson Davis.
It may be doubted if war itself, ever but once in the history of mankind, proved so disastrous to a people, by the hands of those engaged in carrying it on. Perhaps, in the final destruction of Jerusalem, there may have been scenes of greater and more fiendish cruelty by the factions of John and Simon destroying each other, while both were at war with the Romans. And what must be the state of the South, when a delicate woman, who would hardly set her feet on the ground for delicacy, and used to have servants to attend upon her every wish and want, is reduced to straits like these, and children are torn to pieces by the dogs of humble hunters after white flesh for Jefferson Davis's shambles!
Keep the Soldiers' Letters.
Mother, father, brother, sister, wife, sweetheart, keep that bundle sacredly! Each word will be historic, each line invaluable. When peace has restored the ravages of war, and our nation's grandeur has made this struggle the most memorable of those great conflicts by which ideas are rooted into society, these pen-pictures of the humblest events, the merest routine details of the life led in winning national unity and freedom, will be priceless. Not for the historian's sake alone, do I say, keep those letters, but for your sakes who receive them, and ours who write them. The next skirmish may stop our pulses forever, and our letters, full of love for you, will be our only legacy besides that of having died in a noble cause. And should we survive the war, with health and limb uninjured, or bowed with sickness or crippled with wounds, those letters will be dear mementoes to us of dangers past, of trials borne, of privations suffered, of comrades beloved. Keep our letters, then, and write to us all the home news and "gossip." Bid us Godspeed. Speak kindly, loving, courageous words to us. If you can't be Spartans—and we don't want you to be—be "lovers, countrymen, and friends." So shall our feet fall lighter, and our sabers heavier!
Proposition to Hang the Dutch Soldiers.
The following specimen of "chivalric" literature is copied from the Knoxville Register, of June 12, 1862: