The Macon “Telegraph and Confederate,” only the day before the surrender of the city to the Federal forces, justified the atrocities at Andersonville; and the Richmond “Examiner” exclaimed, “Let the Yankee prisoners be put where the cold weather and scant fare will thin them out in accordance with the laws of nature.” There were, however, noble exceptions to the general exhibition of ferocity; and several officers of the rebel army did declare that the condition of affairs at Andersonville was a “reproach to them as a nation.”
The author, who served for five years in the Federal armies of Virginia, of the South, and the South-west, and whose opportunities for observation and inquiry were extensive, does not believe General Lee to be implicated in these outrages. It is true that Lee might have openly and boldly protested against the barbarities, and gained thereby the admiration and the blessing of mankind; but he knew full well that the remonstrance would have fallen upon the cold ear of the implacable executive with no more effect and weight than when the snow-flake falls upon the Alps.
The Virginian struggled to hold his own against the selfish and jealous ambition of the remorseless Mississippian.
To have participated in the revolting cabal of cruelty, there was required the baseness of political intrigue, and to this depth the soldier never sank.
XXII.
To charge an entire people with barbarity, because its rulers sanction crime, and a vile and venal press applaud the motives and the deeds, should not be maintained without long deliberation. “History has the right of suspecting without evidence, but never of accusing without proof.” The rank and file of the rebel army were drawn from the classes of poor whites, who were essentially rural in their populations, and who possessed some trace of the morals and the natural sentiments of generosity that belong to people who cultivate the earth. Although their instincts were modified by the contact of slave labor, they never sank so low in the social scale—to that level of the vile populace of the Roman or medieval times, when the crimes of the emperors were applauded. These men on the battle-field exhibited feelings of humanity; and it was only under the direction of their leaders that they became unkind and ferocious.
It was the leaders who were responsible for the crimes of the sedition; and what of humanity could be expected from men degenerated in blood? What of noble intelligence could be looked for from mental faculties long since degraded? What evidence of a Christian spirit could be hoped for from men who had openly perverted or denied all the divine precepts, upon which revolve the well-being of the human race? “If we had triumphed,” says one of its apostles, at this late day of forgiveness and repentance—“if we had triumphed, I should have favored stripping them naked. Pardon! They might have appealed for pardon, but I would have seen them damned before I would have granted it!”
When Suwarrow forced his way by the sword into the heart of Poland, dividing the realm, devastating the land, and destroying multitudes of people, he offered blasphemous thanks to Heaven for victories obtained over men fighting in the sacred cause of liberty, and for all the human heart holds dear.
XXIII.