The daily bulletin. [volume] (Winchester, Tenn) 1862-1863, 1862-10-24
G en-. B1agg's Proclamation tothe
People Of the Northwest.
HEADQUARTERS g. S. ARMY IN KY, g
Bardstown' Ky, Sept rs, 1862.

Ou UDpTUNCIluS NOuI DpIucTS Nv llc lCSti II
Il Confederate army, it is proper to announce
to YOU the motive and the purposes Of my
presence. |, therefore, make known to you:
/. That the Confederate Government is wa
ging this war solely for self defense-that it
has no designs of conquest, nor any other pur
pose than to secure peace and the abandon
ment by the United States of its pretensions to
govern n people who never have been their
subjects, and who prefer self government to u
union with them.
.. That the Confederate Government ana
people deprecating civil strife from the begin
| ming, and anxious for a pcaC@ablc adjustment
of all differences growing out of n political
separation, which they deemed essential to
their happiness and well being, at the moment
of It's inauguration sent commissioners to
Washington to treat for these objects, but that
their commissioners were not received nor
IcVtl' ullowcdto communicate the object Of their
mission and that on n subsequent occasion, a
communication from the President of the Con-
tedcratc States to President Lincoln remained
without answer, although n reply was prom
isod BY Gcn. Scott, into whose hands the COM
munication was delivered.
3. That among the p~rctcXts urged for n con-
%tinuancr Of the war, is the assertion that the
Confederate Governments desires t. deprive the
United states Of the free navigation Of the
Western rivers, although the truth is, that the
Confederate Congress, by pablo act, prior to
the commencement OF the war, enacted that
''thG pcaccublc navigation Of the Mississippi
river is hereby declared free to the citizens of
any Of the States on its borders, or upon the
borders of its tributsries'-a declaration to
which our Government has always been, and is
still, ready to adhere.
From these declarations, people Of the North
west, ii is made manifest that, by the invasion
Of our territories by land and from sea, We
have been unwtlliT%ly forced into Il war for
sclf-dcionse, and to vindicntc u great princi-
Pile, once dear to all Americans, to wit: that
their consent. We desire peace now
We desire to see a stop put to a useless and cru
ell ctIusion otblood, and that waste of nation
al wealth rapidly leading to, and sure to end
in, national bakruptcy. We are, therefore,
now, as ever, ready to treat with the United
States, er any one or more Of them, upon terms
Of mutual justice and libcrslity. And ut this
juncturc, when our arms have been successful
ON many hard-fuught fields, when our people
have exhibited a constancy. Il fOrtitude and
courage worthy otthc boon ofself-govcrnment,
we restrict ourselves to the same moderate de-
mands that We made ut the darkest period of
our rcverses-rhe demand that the people of
the United States cease to war upon us, and
permit lis III peace to pursue our path to happi.
ness, while they in peace pursue theirs.
We are, however, dcbarrcd from the renew
al OF former proposals for peace, because the
RELENTLESS spirit that Actuatcs the government
ut v ashington, leaves lis no reason to expect
that they would be received with the respect
naturally due By nations in their Intercourse,
whether in peace or war. 1t is under these
circumstance that we are driven to protect our
own country by transferring the scat Of war
to that of the enemy who pursues us with i'm
plocablc and apparently ]ailnlcss hostility. If
the war must be continued, its theatre must
be changed, and with it, the policy that has
heretofore kept lis on the defensive on our soil.
30 fur it is only cur own fields that have been
laid waste, our people killed, our homes made
dcsolatG, and our frontiers ravaged By rupinc
and murder. The sacred right of sclf-defcnse
demands that hcnccforth some of the cOnse-
qucnceS OF the war shall tall upon those who
persist in their refusal to make peace. With
the people of the Northwest rests the power
to put an end to the invasion Of their homes;
for, if unable to prevail upon theGovernment
of the United States to conclude a general
peace, their own State Governments, in the en-
erclsc Oh thClf sovereignty, caI secure lnllnu-
nlty from the dcsoluting effects of warfare on
their soil, by Il separate treaty of peace which
our Government will be ready to conclude on
the most Just and liberal basis.
The responsibility then rests with you, the
people of the Northwest, of continuing an I'M
just and aggressive warfare upon the people of
the Confederate States. And in tho name of
reason and humanity, [ call upon you to pause
and reflect what cause of quarrel SO bloody
have you against these States. and what are
you to gain by it, Nature has set her seal on
these States and marked them out to be your
friends and allies. She has bound them to you
by all the ties of geographical contiguity and
conformation, and the great mutual interests of
commerce and productions. When the pas
sions of this unnatural war shall have subsidized,
and reason resumes her sway, a community of
interest will force commercial and social cOali-
ton between the great grain and stock grow
ing States of the Northwest, and the cotton, to-
bacco and sugar regions of the South. The
Mississippi river is a grand artery of their mu-
tual national lives which men cannot sever,
and which never ought to have been suffered to
be disturbed by the antagonisms, the cupidity
and tho hirotrv of Nov, Eu,lopJ onI Tho Eoct'