What apology the Southerners could offer in this case I know not; but I suppose they might treat the matter in the same light as they do the wrongs inflicted upon the four millions of human beings whom they hold in bondage. Their reply is, when spoken to of their cruelties to their slaves:
“Oh, they’re only niggers!”
So, in regard to General Prentiss, they might say:
“Oh, he’s only a Yankee abolitionist!”
And shame mantles my brow as I say that there is a class of men in the North, whom this answer would not only satisfy, but actually delight. Thank God that this class is a harmless minority! What a sorry figure they will cut after the war is over, and the rebels thrashed back into the Union! They remind me of an anecdote I once heard, of a man named John Williams. John was a poor, lazy coward himself, while his wife was just the reverse. Moving to a mountainous region in Virginia, they got a little cabin and lot of ground. One day Lucy, his wife, was working in the garden, while John was nursing the baby. Suddenly an old, hungry bear was seen coming down the mountain side, directly toward them. John instantly dropped the child, ran to the cabin, climbed up the ladder into the loft, and pulled the ladder up after him, thus leaving the mother and baby to do the best they could. Lucy, seeing her chance of escape thus cut off, did not wait to scold her cowardly husband, but seizing an ax, went out to meet the bear. As soon as old Bruin came within reach, the courageous mother struck him on the head again and again.
John, as he witnessed this from the loft-window, cried out:
“Quit that, you Lucy; you’ll make him madder and madder!”
Lucy paid no attention to John, but continued chopping away at the bear until she killed him. As the beast fell dead, John breathed somewhat more freely, and called out:
“Lucy, is he dead?”
“Yes.”