Charles City Republican intelligencer. [volume] (Charles City, Iowa) 1861-1864, 1861-11-21
The :" Yankee ScalperS."

l ne lankee ScalperS.
The Louisville Courier, sympathiz
ing with secession, was compelled tc
flee from the loyal city Of Louisville
and place itself under the protection
OF the rebel General Buckncr and has
since been printed at Nashville while
it is ostensibly published at Bowling
Green, and all the while retains its
old name of Louisville Courier. \ late
number contains this paragraph
1.-THE Yankee Scalpcrs is the name
of a company of Choctaw Indians ell.
listed in the Confederate service"
The Courier mentions this with no
word Of disapproval, but with evident
appreciation and cxultation. The
Courier's feelings upon the subject
however is matter of little or no
consequence the only fact in the
case that interests the public is that
a company of Choctaw Indians has
been enrolled in the Confederate SER
vice under the name of the yankee
Scalpers."
Upon this subject the Louisville
Journal comments as follows:
Some of our scccssionists here.
since it became known that the Con-
fcdcrates were making great, and, TO
some extent, successful excrtions to
enlist the Indian tribes in the war
against the United States, have pre-
tended to think that the Indian char.
acter has become so changed within
the last few years that no apprchen-
sion need be entertained of their prac-
ticing the horrid barbaritics which
everywhere marked their progress in
our revolutionary war and in our war
of 1919, and in all the other nu-
merous wars in which our people have
been engaged with them. We say
our sccessionists have pretended to
think this, but they do not think it.
They know better they know that
the indian disposition in warfare is
unchanged. To suppose that they do
not know this would be to suppose
them ignorant as cattle of all the in
cidents upon our Western frontier and
through the immense Indian territory
beyond during the last few years.
They must have read, if they ever
read at all, hundreds of accounts of
white men, who, travelling over the
wide Indian domain between the At
lantic and the Pacific, have been killed
by the savages, and afterwards found
not only with the marks of the toma-
hawk and calping-kniie but with all
the brutal and revolving mutilations
that savage ingenuity could invent
and savage brutality inllict. There
has probably been no case where
white men have fallen victims in tue
midst of our Western Indian tribes
and had their scalps left upon their
heads. And humanity has often sick
encd aud turned pale in reading of the
disgusting and shocking treatment
| extended to innocent and beautiful
women during their captivity among
| the Indian tribes within the last few
years. The Indian character for cru.
city is not only unchanged but un.
changeable. 1t is as much part OF
his moral nature as red skin is OF
his physical.
Moreover, the Confederate civil or
military authorities, as the paragraph
we have cited from the Courier shows,
have no thought Of leaving any doubt
upon mems or women's minds as to
their views and expectations in en-
gaging the services Of Indians in this
struggle. They enroll Indian com.
panies that give notice beforehand OF
their designs by dcnominating them
selves Yankee Scalpers )" and by
the term Yankee they, like thcil
white brethren of the seeding States
mean all whom they are to tigh,
against. The sealping knives and
tomahawks will not discriminate be
tween New Englanders, New Workers
and Kentuckians. This war then is
to be made, on the part of the Confed
crates, such war as those for which
all Of our countrymen no less in The
South than the North have for half .
century been invoking all the wore
to wreak its Indignation upon Grea
Britain as guilty Of conduct that wa.
q shame to civilization and to human
nature. What difference, as we ant
our living and dead fathers have thou
sands of times asked, can there b,
between civilized nations welding
with its own hands the weapon,
Of savage torture and massacre
against the men, women and children
of belligerent nation, and calling il
the aid of barbarian allies who, the,
know, will do this Z?
/ The Confederate organs in the Soutl
boasted, some time ago, that they hat
even then enlisted four Indian regi
mcnts, and were making fine progress
in their Indian enlistments. A portion
Of their Indians, as we know from sc
cession testimony, have been for SOM
days at Bowling Green, and other
will soon be there. The whole or tn
bulk Of the savage forces enlisted an