The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1862-05-10
Secession BPutalitieS

Inc ncport OF the JOINT Committee
on the Conduct Of the War, will be
found in condensed form on the first
page of The Wing this week. We
would not have thought of looking
elsewhere than in the annals of savage
tribes, for such revolving details of
inhuman brutality, as we find in this
short report of a committee appointed
to inquire into and ascertain, upon what
foundation-rested the rumors that filled
the land, Of the hyona-like atrocities
committcd upon both the living and the
dead of our army, whom the misfor.uncs
Of war have placed in the hands of the
rebels. The report of this Committee,
whose evidence has been drawn from
unimpeachable sources, more than con-
| firms the barbarism and Heather cruelty
that have been charged upon the seces-
sion leaders and their satellites and abct-
tors. We are shocked when we read of
African cannbals eating their prisoners,
or of the American Indians binding to a
stake and roasting their captivcs.-
These are Hcathens and have been
taught no be ter. But what excuse can
there be offered for these Southern
traitors, who seek to overturn and des.
troy the fairest government that man,
taught by the lights of Christianity and
Civilization, has ever been enabled to
rear, and in their wild demoniac efforts
to accomplish such a fendish purpose,
display degree of barbarism that chal-
lenges a comparison with that of un.u-
tored savagcs! Even the wild man of
the forest will leave unmutiatcd the
bones of the dead and heretofore there
has been but one animal among the
beasts of prey that would rife the graves
of the dead, and that the widest savage
of them all, the tamcless hyena. But
this war has brought to public view
another beast Of prey in human shape,
the secessionist, who contests with the
hycna the atrocity of plundcring the
grave, to devour the tenant of the mar
row tomb.
When we contemplate, however, the
depravity and depth of infamy to which
man must sink before he can stretch
forth his hand to destroy his own offspring
for the popular institutions which
constitute the Government of the United
States, springing as they do directly from
the people, can be looked upon in
no other light than as the offspring of
the people,-we should be prepared to
look upon those who would attempt it,
as being ripe for all the enormities
which have been thickly strswn along
the burnt and bloody path of Secession.
We might naturally have expected to
behold their women gloating over the
tes: crng corscs of unburied dead, and
their meu rifing the grave for bodies to
burn, to glut a Genlish revenge, or to boil
up in order to get the bones, out of
which to manufacture rings, and the
skulls of the unconscious brave for
drinking cups.
But to turn from this managcrie of
human hyenas, and contemplate those
who are at distance from the strife,
and claim to- be civilized nay, not only
civilized and enlightened, but educated
and refined, even christianized, aiding,
by a defensive policy towards those
TRAITORS to truth, and outlaws of justice
and democratic government, those afro
cities that are glazing upon the world in
bloody horror, and what shall we say
Of them? Every nam and woman that
you hear scott at the Governmcnt,-
and they have "a thousand and one :"
ways which they resort to for that pur-
pose-you may set down as co-worker
in the grave robbery, and cold blooded
murder of defcnselcss prisoners.
Those who were weak enough to take
sides with the rebellion from a miscon-
ception Of its real object, or from des-
picable admiration of its inflated and
boastfal pretens,ons, can have no such
excuse now, since it has sunk to
ignominy, with nothing left to mark its
page in the worlds history, bat it's
bloody enormitles. Every man with
but an ordinary degree of commonscnsc,
must admit that this great abortion,-
Scccssion-thc pride Of fools and
trump card of knaves, is hopelessly
ruined and the man with these facts
before bin, who is heard soothing at the
Government which SO humancly protects
him, and showing symptoms of pleasure
when he hears secession lie of some
reported success to the traitor arms,
should be marked as an enemy to the
human race, and be remembered by
honest men only TO be despised.