The Hancock Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Ohio) 1857-1870, 1863-08-21

liken 5 Bend. l Dung = Point and Nicks
Ibuig--points now garrissoned hv oui
troops--swarm with negroes. In til,
latter place, we are told, every vacant
house, store and outhouse is filed to
overilowing with them, while upon
every side of the city there are vas,
camps of them. and hundreds of 9th.
css are daily Hooking in from all parts
of the State.
Flour in Mobile, Charleston and
other Southern cities is to-day worth
from $3.50 to S115 per barrcll, while
corn aud all other articles necessary
to the sustcnancc of u people or of IN
army are proportionatelv high Such
| facts Indicate the stress Which the
rebel government must he in to feed
their army, and clearly enough dem
onstratc the great advantages to be
gained by our own govcrnmentb by de-
lpnving the rebels of the advantages
or slave labor. Take the section of
country recently traversed by Grant =
army, for example From Milliken' )
Bcnd to Brrinsburg, Louisiana, dis
tance of one hundred and twenty five
miles, there is no equal extent of
country even in our own favored
Northwest which is richer in agricu.
tural resources. We are told that i'm
April last, when Grant marched his
army over it, this entire extent of
country was one vast field Of corn, at
that time about one foot high, and
under a high state of cultivation--all
the result of slave labor. These
slaves all knew of and understood the
emancipation proclamation They
knew that it meant that they were ut
liberty to clay down the shovel and
the hoe and accept their freedom at
the hands of the army, and they laid
them down and accepted it according
asysisurt9RH AZ RH csNaigtst t'fii fiir6Gasth;out a Missis
sippi. Not single field of cotton
was under cutivation--every acre Of
ground was devoted to the production
of corn, the great staple cereal of the
South. To take away the slaves whose
labor was cultivating these fields was
to allow them to come to naught--to
grow up to weeds and waste. These
slaves were taken away--or rather
they voluntarily and joyfully accept
ed an opportunity to go away in the
wake Of the armp--and thus, by an
easy, simple and sensible process the
rebel army was deprived of an inn
portant source of strength and means
of suStcnancc.
Under this policy of depriying rcb-
els of the benefits of slave labor, the
scarcity of food ut the South, which
mt present is II source of great annoy
ance aud alarm to the rebel govern
mcnt, will, few months hence, prove
BttHr'G GohiMstE9ps TO it, .Ms ,liAys HAYS
past concerning the resources of the
South in the materials necessary To
the subsistence of an army, but the
enormous prices for all descriptions
of food throughout Secessa, the re-
cent advance of Lee into Pennsylva-
mia, evidently but desperate and
costly attempt to obtain supplies and
the fact that the great avenue of sup
plies from the Red and Yazoo River
countries is no longer open to the
rebels, all indicate that crisis in Tic
matter of food for their army is rap
idly ovcrtakin9 the rebels. The
Emancipation Proclamation, giving
To all eur Generals in the field, rs it
did, II fixed policy concerning slavery,
has contributed TO this state of things
more than all other cases combined