Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1862-12-04

number, attest the desperate valor with
which they confronted death. Not with the
rank and fle 10 the blamel The leaders.--
There has been the secret of failure.
With all the advantages Of . just cause
over our enemies, we hsve suffered them TO
outdo us in earnestness. We lack the en-.
thusiasm which made irresistible the charge
Of Cromwell's Ironsides. We need the 10.
vincible impulse Of q sentiment. We want,
above all. leaders who know and feel what
they are fighting for. This is war in which
mercenaries avail not. There must be a
higher motive than the pay Of a Swiss-a
boiler duty urging on, than the professional
pride or the blind obedience of a soldier
BY parliamentary usage proposed measure
Is intrusted, for fostering care, to its friends.
so should this war be. Its conduct should
be confded to men whose hearts and souls
are in it.
Again. II has long been one Of our ma.
tional sins that we pass BY with scarcely a
rebuke, the gravest public offcnscs. We
utterly fail in holding to a strict accounta-
bility our public men. The result of such
failure, in peace, had almost escaped our
notice. In war We have now behsld it's ef.
fects, fragrant and terrible.
1t was not TO be expected that among so
many thousands of officers suddenly appoint
ed there should not be some hundreds Of
incompstents. Such things must be. No
one is to blame If, in the field or garden,
weeds spring up. The blame rests with
who. leaves them there 10 choke the
crop and aud cumber the ground.
Accountability-that should be the watch.
word--AcCoUNrABILITY, stern, unreentingl
Of6ce has its emoluments; let it have its
responsibilities also. Let us deHand, as
Napoleon demanded success from our lead
era. The rule may work harshly. War
needs harsh rules. Actions are not to be
measured in war by the standard of peace.
The sentinel, worn by extreme fatigue, who
sleeps at his post, incurs the I.enalty of
death. There is mercy in courts martial
drumhead courts.martial. A dozen officers
shot, whenever the gravity of the offense
demands it, may be the saving Of life to
tens Of thousands Of bravo men.
Eighteen months have passed. Eight
hundred millions have been spent. We have
q million Of armed men in the field. More
than hundred thousand rest in soldiers
graves And for all this what result? Is
1t strange ii sometimes the heart sinks and
resolution fails at the thought that, from
sheer administrative in6rmlty, the vast sac
ri6ce may have been all in vain?
But let the Past 60 Its fatal faults (dif-
icult, perhaps, to avoid, under an effort so
sudden and 90 vsst) can never be recalled
Doubtless they had their use. 1t needed
the grlevOus incapacity we have witnessed,
the singing reverses we have suffered, the
invasion Of free States we have lived to see
commenced; it needed the hecatombs Of
dead piled up unavailingly on battle field
after battle. 6eld-the desolate hearths, the
brokcn-hearted suryivors-it needed all
this to pave the way for that emancipation
which is the only harbiagsr Of pssoe.
The Future that is still ours to improve.
Nor, it some clouds yet rest upon it, is it
without bright promise. Signs of nasosnt
activity, energy, and . resolution to hold
accountable for the issue the leaders of our
armies, are daily apparent. Better than all,
the initiative in q true line of policy has
been taken. The twenty-third Of Septem-
Der has had its effect. The path Of safety
is before US; steep and rugged, indeed, but
no longer doubtful nor obscure. A lamp
has been lit to guide our stops; alamp that
may burn more brightly before new year
dawns upon us. The noble prayer Of Ajax
has been vouchsafed in our cause. At last
we have light to fight by. .-.
We shall reach quiet haven if we but
follow faithfully aud psrseveringly that guild
ing light.
There is, at this moment, in the hearts Of
all good men throughout the length and
breadth of the land, no deeper feeling, no
more earnest longing, than for peace peace
not for the day, not to last for few years
but peace, on foundation Of rock, for our
selves and for our children after us- May
the hearts of our rulers be opened to the