The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1862-07-24
KENOsHA WISCONSIN, THURSDAY, JULY a. 1862.
The slaves and the War.
Correspondence OF the New York Tribune.
SEVEN PINES. Va, June 9, 1856

] Correspondence
SEVEN PINES, Va, June 9, 1862.
To whatever of reason and justice sensible
men have to Justify this alliance unhesltatlng
| " add the Testimony of quarter OF years
exnerience in our Peninsular war, that it is ut
| terly impossible for us to subdue the feDeis
without an alliance with their slaves
We demonstrated before Manassas that We
needed the aid of the slaves. The history o.
war does not present an example OF suct
| chronic ignorance of the enemy's strength ano
movements as we camped stolid under for siz
months within ten miles of the foe. Wher
thew haoan to eyacuete q cornheld, which only
our thick ignorance had converted INTO q pc
yastopool, we knew nothing OF It, the5
marched away with cannon, wagons 1000
baggage everything-nos leaving uoiiat
worth Of property behind-making faultlest
retreat. We knew nothing of it. A peddlel
from New England State, driving horse O
the barebones breed, was the first MAI to entei
the evacuated Manassas, and as he stood up IL
his wagon front, gripping his clothes,lner elns
was The first man to wonder at the puerilt
| character of the school yard dirt work before
which an army of over 200, 900 men had beer
kept at bay. Nay, not kept at bay by tne
| children's dirt works-but by the consequences
| of an IGNORANCE, which could not possibly nave
been nursed and maintained, had the right
| hand of brotherhood DScu SlI0tChCO ONs " SAN
negroes in Richmond, and had the president
ar commander in chief said; Tell us what
vour war department does; where the rebe
forces are how many they are and tell US
this daily and you shall forever be tree =
| Wells. Bunerfeld s. Co., never ran sureI
express between Buffalo and Albany than the
underground military express that would nave
been run between Richmond and Washington
on the initial alliance between the white Union
men of the North and the black Union men OF
the South. Ipit4al alliance why, we nave
eyervwher6 been helpless without these blacks,
or exposed to ap.hazard. Landed at Fort
Monroe. and feundered through the main road
up to Hampton and above it-where were we
Without maps, without guides. The country
was a wilderness We had not scrap OF sur
yey as big as the hand, that showed the cours,
es of the innumGrable wood roads that wound
through it, The old coast survey chart OF the
soundinps of the York and James rivers, with
the single turnpike to Yorktown, Williams
burg and Richmond, was the guide over which
generals, compass in hand, guessed where this
road led tom what that detouehed-WheFe
this would strike the Warwick river-and II
that would give finn bottom to artllIery,-
Where are the enemy No one knew. Ii was
safe to conclude that they We're behind their
line OF defenses which stretched across the Pc
uiusula. Where are their defenses? No one
knew, save that when we got to Yorktown we
would find part OF them. The rest it was
proposed to but on to, Forward Oh, how
must the genius of rebellion have grinned from
her outlook, at the unguided wandering in an
unmapped wilderness of an army OF invasion
Maps! Useless works of the engineering art,
when negroes, live maps, that could see, anu
walk, and talk, and point with the index finger
crowds of them-stood expectant within reach
fhirEfe0
employed to conduct US to the enemy by the
driost and best paths maps capable OF lead
ing us, with unerring certainty, through the
woods to the lowest and weakest parts OF The
line of 1ntlenchments the rebels had thrown up
between the York and James rlVers-aged
MAPS sold from plantation TO plantation,
throurh the Peninsula, and familiar from ans
cient coon-hunting, and STILL persistent night
wandering, with every road and swamp III it,
who turning their backs upon those accursed
co,ds of shovels and pickaxes locked at Fort
rcss Monroe, and Walking away from them
with salvation speed would have led our army
rioht up to the places Of weakness, and hating
Ms in the wood, said 10 the commander, "Dis
am de place, Massa, where de army of de Lord
and freedom can burst fru, just as fru garden
fence Glib 'em de baycnet, and leave de rest
wild de Lord ?" I knew 100000 men in April
last. who, under such guidance and such God
speed, wonld have stormed the gates Of hell.
How self-evidentit is that this alliance with
the slaves would have saved the precious,
time-wasting preparations to besiege York
town-have avoided the lazar house curse OF
existence and toll on the Warwick river, and
averted that slaughter of the innocents of the
Vermont regiments at Lees Mills, whom
Ayers steel gauntletted hands stretched over
and dripping with flames and shooting, shot
and shell, could scarcely pluck from the bloody
ruin upon which imbecility had hung them
You, whose Grape and tears date from the sac
rifcial day of Williamsburg, will it comfort
YOU to know that our attack there in front was
unnecessary-that roads circled the enemy'i
position that slaves could have conducted US
through them, and that by flank attacks We
could have bagged or crushed the entire enemy
we were pursuing. There is no doubt whatev'
err about this. Unfortunately, there is just AZ
little donbt that we had refused alliance to the
slave The retributions of our military errol
was terrible. Was it not just?