Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1863-06-08
Goodwill to the south.

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Goodwill to the South.
The great miseries of the war thus ia,
have fallen on the South. The loyal States
have felt the infiction in the life that has
been sacrificed, and in the mourning thai
mas come into many homes. Even in this
respect, the loss is less severe than where
an equal or greater number is to be ia
Keen from a much smaller population
But passing from the ravages of disease in
the camp, and the casualties of battle, there
is no longer any comparison to be made
as to the evils that are suffered. The heat
from the flames of war grows intensely by
a rapid multiplying ratio, as one goes near
the spot on which Its fires are burning. Its
full power to devastate and destroy is
known only upon the land that is the the
atre OF its operations. War may wound
afar off, but underneath it tramples on and
crusbes. A single path of hostile army
through one valley, like the many that
have been made along the Rappahannock,
or the Shenandoah, or the Tennessee,
would leave behind it track of more wide
and general distress than could have been
marked by all the accumulated disasters of
fire and storm and flood, during the CEN
turies since it began to be inhabited. With
'"AA L4AbiBAbIOuS MulGu ClN1llH6U usage
has put upon the ways of war, it is still,
for the regions which it traverses, terrific
and concentrated destruction. 1t treads
down the growing crops, it lays open the
farmers enclosures, and steals his hay and
corn, and the cattle or horses with which
to take them away. That which it can not
carry 1t burns, lest an opposing soldiery
should use it. 1t sets on fire the machine
shops and tanneries, the manufactures of
clothing and leather, the lumber and grist
mills: 1t frightens labor from all its en-
Payments, and drives families from their
homes. II is the forerunner, not only of
poverty, but of starvation. A district
can not be often so overrun and remain
inhabitable.
For two years, along its wide frontier of
thopsand miles, the South shas borne
this desolation. Our armies have lighted
along It's whole seacoast besides, and have
penetrated far into its interior. And al
though there are many sections which
have thus far escaped altogether the Sc
verer .ravages OF war, yet now its neigh
borhoods must be few in which households
can lie down and rest quite free from all
fear to hear by night the tramping of
northern horsemen.
We are not disp ID to think of all this
without some feelings Nf sympathy and of
sadness. Security and life, friends and
home are as dear to many at the South as
they are to us. Defeatin battle is the same
thing to them that it is to US or more ape
pailing, as it involves questions of personal
safety, which we havenot yet been brought
to consider. There are those, too, we
must believe, whose sense of propriety aud
right is enlisted in behalf of the rebellion,
! nd hTy tE,o
larger number of the common people; it
must be supposed that they have entered
into the contest rather in Difference to the
men whose lead they have been accus-
toned to follow, than in obedience to any
judgment or in consequence of any choice
of their own.
Why then do we urge on contest like
this, bringing such calamities upon vast
population We answer, not because we
love to see the suffering; but because, first,
there are higher views to be taken, which
overlook all this matter of local and tenn
porary evil, and aim beyond at a more than
counterbalancing permanent and general
good; and second, because in this the real
welfare of the South itself is included
There is no occasion to repeat in how many
ways this is true. but there is one that de-
serves to be mentioned in connection with
that very fact which has been spoken of,
that so many at the South have been led
into this war without knowledge, and are
now suffering for their ignorance. This
want of knowledge is one of the things
that they ought to suffer for. They should
never have allowed themselves to be kept
so in ignorance. They had no right to re-
main under this double tyranny of their
own passions and prei0dices, aud the pas
aiNn1 NFHIOHiCna n fhnan int
power their ignorance cast them. Here is
one of the lessons that the masses at the
South have to learn. The sufferings ofthe
war in this light are seen to be not unde-
served; they will prove a merciful vista
tion, if they do something to cure the
wrong that brought them on. The people
there had been trained to believe that
we hated them and wished them evil;
aud moreover that we were all of an.
inferior race, and cowardly, and un-
fit to be associated with them There
were those that knew better, and that
might have taught the others better, only
they had an interest in keeping up the de-
ception. In almost all respects the politi-
cal training of the South with reference to
us has been by falsehoods, and with full
purpose to hide the truth. The real facts
they would not allow to be spoken or
printed. And the people we're content
that it should be so, and were. more willing
to have their pride excited and their feel
iugs of bitterness and hatred stirred up
than to learn the truth. For this more
than for any other cause, the horrors of
war are now upon them. We shall be dis.
appointed if one of it's results is not 10
break up somewhat that control of igno.
rance, and to bring the people of these
States to value and to seek after, more
than they have been accustomed to, a real
knowledge of those facts in which they are
interested as belonging with US to one ma
ton. 1t is upon this and other similar
issues, not of evil but Of good, that we
love best TO think when the calamities
which this war brings upon that portion Of