Holmes County farmer. [volume] (Millersburg, Ohio) 1857-1926, 1862-12-25
An Appca, to the President.

MI W NbaS
The most splendid army of the world
with generals as gallant as ever led, and
soldiers as brave as ever marched to vic
tory, has met the irightfulest disaster o
the war BY Gen. Hallcck's orders the
Army Of the Rappahannock was march.
ed up against the impregnablc batteries
ofthe Fredericksburg heights, brigade af-
ter brigade, division after division, one
after another decimatcd, thousands upon
thousands slaughtered, from daybreak to
sunset, until its ruin was complete, until
well nigh twenty thousand brave and
noble souls wet the Virginia hill-sides
with their blood. The unbenching cour-
age, the dauntlcss intrepidity, of our
magnificent army were never more sub.
limely displayed. The laundering STRAIT
egy, the incompetent gcneralship, which
hurled them to fruitiess doom never
branded itself 50 conspicuously as in
this indiscriminate slaughter and murder
by wholesale. Again have you Abra.
ham Lincoln, by the hands of Henry w
llaleck and Edwin NJ. Stanton, sen,
death to thousands upon thousands o.
our brothers and friends, again desoaton
and anguish to tho homes and hearts OF
the people death that gives no life t.
the perishing nation, and sorrow whicl
no patriotism can console or the con
sciousness of needrul though costly self.
sacrifice can assuage. By the banks o.
the Rapahannock there was slaughter
which was fruitless, and by twenty thou
sand iiresides, tears to day are shed whicl
God al one can wipe away.
: We have no words Of anger in an hour
! like this. The sense of sorrow for the
nation and her slaughtered sons, cool'
even the hot wrath which must yet break
forth upon the heads Of those whose self
ishnes|, whose incompctency, whose rcck
essne,s, aud whose ambition have brought
this grief upon us.
BY that sorrow, in which there is not
family in all the cities and villages Of thu
North but shares; by that love Of sountrJ
which has not faltered among us, and doe
not ialter,in her darkest hour; by the hope
which must yet linger in the bosom of tn,
chief magistrate to recover the confdenc,
OF his people and to transmit an honoreC
name to his and their posterity; by the de
sire whi:h in his serious moments mus
yet move him to win in times as trying a
those in which Washington won the It'll,
Of the father Of his country, the equal ii
tie Of its saviour; by the unutterable con
tempt OF the men of his own time ano
the blasting scorn Of history which will
surely be wrcaked upon him if he fails il
aughl which he may fairly do to save th
republic; by the glory which may ye
await. and by the doom which threatens
her; by these, and every other considera
ton which the breaking hearts or tn,
anxious minds Of twenty millions Of pco
pie can conceive OF frame, we beseech the
President to cut loose now and finally
| from his past and fatal policy, and from
the men, of whom it is enough to say,
that the Union and the Constitution
might have been saved, but that, with
the resources of continent and the arms
of twenty millions of united froemen at
their backs, they have not saved it. We
beseech him to call to his Cabinet and
aid, the ablest, brevest, and the best men
of the nation, and so, if our cause i, no,
yet past all remedy, by their help and the
favor OF a just God, to make one final ef
fort for the salvation of the republic
whicl fruitless millions have been spent
for, and for which more than hundred
thousand lives have been yielded up in
vain - No,p yr,E Uorl1