Perhaps the best way to close this revolting chapter is by quoting from the report of a Select Committee of the Confederate Congress, consisting of one Senator from each of the thirteen States, and of which Senator C. C. Clay, of Alabama, was Chairman. The Committee was raised, under a resolution of the Senate, to collect and report evidences of the outrages committed by the enemy upon the persons and property of our citizens, in violation of the rules of civilized warfare and the rights of humanity. In their report they say:
“That they have received statements of wrongs, injuries and outrages committed by the enemy in only four States of the Confederacy—Alabama, Arkansas, North Carolina and South Carolina—and that these embrace only a small part of what has been suffered by our citizens in these States. But those statements show that our invaders have been utterly regardless of every principle of lawful warfare, every precept of the Christian religion, and every sentiment of enlightened humanity. They have not spared even the memorials of our dead or suffer their remains to rest undisturbed. They have robbed many persons of relics of deceased parents, children or other relatives and friends, which were invaluable to them and valueless to the robbers, merely to torture the souls of our citizens and satisfy their own mean and malevolent animosity. They have murdered peaceful and unoffending citizens, and have seized and taken many of them far from their families and homes, and incarcerated them in prisons of the United States. To others they offered the choice of a prison, or an oath of allegiance to the United States. They have rushed, by regiments, battalions or companies, into our villages and robbed, like banditti, both men and women, in their dwellings and on the streets, of money, watches and other jewelry. Their soldiers have indulged their brutal passions upon women, sometimes in open day and public places, with impunity, if not by license of their officers. They have not spared either age, sex or calling. Even those unfortunates whom the mysterious providence of God has bereft of reason, or of the faculty of speech, or the sense of sight or hearing, have not escaped the demoniacal wrath of our enemies.
“In conclusion the committee feel warranted in saying that the conduct of the war, on the part of our enemies, has not exhibited the moderation, the forbearance, the chivalrous courtesy, the magnanimity or Christian charity which the spirit of the age demands, and which the practice of civilized nations for several centuries last past has generally illustrated. It has been a war against property, both public and private; against both sexes and against all classes of society; against the political, moral and religious sentiment of our people; against their honor and their public affection; against what has hitherto been deemed sacred, inoffensive and exempt from hostility by all civilized nations. It has been conducted so as to insult while they injured, to exhibit towards us contempt as well as hatred. It has been waged as if they wished never to have had peace with us, or expected us never to hold in future any equality with them. Its prospective policy has not been to restore the Union, or to have any future commerce or intercourse with us as independent or friendly States. They disdain to conciliate, and design to subjugate or exterminate our people.”
The Confederate States Congress adopted in December, 1863, an address to the people, in which the objects of the war and the manner of conducting it were set forth. The Committee say:
“Accompanied by every act of cruelty and rapine, the conduct of the enemy has been destitute of that forbearance and magnanimity which civilization and Christianity have introduced to mitigate the asperities of war. Houses are pillaged and burned, churches are defaced, towns are ransacked, clothing of women and infants is stripped from their persons, jewelry and mementoes of the dead are stolen, mills and implements of agriculture are destroyed, private salt works are broken up, the introduction of medicines is forbidden, means of subsistence are wantonly wasted to produce beggary, prisoners are returned with contagious diseases, the last morsel of food has been taken from families who were not allowed to carry on a trade or branch of industry; a rigid and offensive espionage has been introduced to ferret out disloyalty; persons have been forced to choose between starvation of helpless children and taking the oath of allegiance to a hated Government; the cartel for exchange of prisoners has been suspended, and our unfortunate soldiers subjected to the grossest indignities; the wounded at Gettysburg were deprived of their nurses, and inhumanly left to perish on the field; helpless women have been exposed to the most cruel outrages and to that dishonor which is infinitely worse than death; citizens have been murdered by the Butlers and McNeils and Milroys, who are favorite generals of our enemies; refined and delicate ladies have been seized, bound with cords, imprisoned, guarded by negroes, and held as hostages for the return of recaptured slaves; unoffending non-combatants have been banished or dragged from their quiet homes, to be immured in filthy jails; preaching the Gospel has been refused, except on condition of taking the oath of allegiance; parents have been forbidden to name their children in honor of ‘Rebel’ chiefs; property has been confiscated; military Governors have been appointed for States, satraps for provinces, and Haynaus for cities.
Well can we understand the burning lines of S. Teakle Wallis:
“From the far-off conquered cities
Comes the voice of a stifled wail,
And the shrieks and moans of the houseless
Ring out, like a dirge, on the gale!