The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1863-12-12
Still Runnin1.

Sill Running. @
CHATTANOOGA, Dec. 7.-Hardee is still
falling back. The mountains of East Ten
nessee are filled with rebel deserters.
A Union Voice from Libby Prison.
Appeal from . Captured Hill
nOiS Officer. .4 ~ lfT7af 1a
LIBBY Prison, RICHMOND, va.-Editor
Chicago Euening Journal: OF what are
our people thinking, that the thinned ranks
of our regiments are not filled up at once,
and our Generals furnished with plenty Of
men to push this rotten and lettering rebel
lion to the wall? True, we have more men
now in the field than the rebels, and per-
haps enough to eventually defeat and de-
stroy their armies. But why, with our
millions of men and unbounded resources,
should we wait for our veteran soldiers to
contend with and gradually conquer ar
mics nearly as strong as their own, when
we have the ability to hurl such an ava
lanche of men upon them as shall in one
short winters campaign drive their lead
ers from the land, and their soldiers into
submission to the Constitution and laws o
the country? These, Mr.. Editor, are ques-
tons which we prisoness-as we lay here
month after month, wearing out our lives
in these wretched prisOns-ask ourselves
daily. It may be said that it is too late
now to operate in the field this winter
Let me say was in the field last winter,
and would ask for no better weather for
field operations than we had in December
and January in Tennessee and Mississippi.
II is mistake to suppose that armies can
not operate in this country in the winter
I know by experience that the open field is
much better place for a soldier, both as
regards his comfort, his health and fare,
than the best Of the rebel prisons.
have now been here four months, and
there has not been time during those
months but what an army of 300, 900 men
or less-well commanded, could have land
ed on the York river, moved over the PEN
insula, taken Richmond, and held it. This
statement is not made unadvisedly. It is
objected that Lee would prevent any such
movement on the Peninsula. Could we
and anything better than that Lee could be
drawn from his present strongholds, if that
could be done without reducing the present
strength of Meade's army?
Illinois can throw into the field-without
the least detriment to her agricultural,
manufacturing or commercial interests
10000 men within the next thirty days.
No man who is worthy of the proud name
of Illinoisan will deny this. Other States
doing their duty, the first day of January
next would see our armies increased by
SOC, 900 men. With this increase to our ar
mics, our Generals would, ere the bad
roads of February and March interiered
with active operations, garrison Richmond
and every principal city in the rebel States;
and rescue the II, 900 prisoners now laying
idle in their prisons. Another and great
reason why our people should flock to the
noW and overwhelm this insur-
rection is, that these IL 900 prisoners a re
many of them suffering for food. Ispeak
now of the privates, for the officers are re-
ceiving provisions by the boat load from
our loved ones at home, and as long as we
are so supclied, can bear our close confine-
ment in these filthy dens as long as the
good four cause demands it. But these
privates, brave fellows who have left homes
of comfort and plenty, the loving care of
gentle wife or anxious mother and the sun
ny smiles of happy little ones, to bear the
privations and hardships of the camp and
march, and brave the awful thunders of
the rebel cannon, are many of them this
day STARRING sto,siy to death. aa
Can any well-fed alderman, merchant or
banker, of Chicago, sit down with a good
appetite to his sirloin of beef and its rich
Can any farmer in Illinois enjoy the food
with which his well-heaped board is sup
piled, while he sees in his minds eye his
neighbours son, his nephew, or perchance
his own brave boy, standing on that hlthy
spot, misnamed ''Belle' Island, with his
tattered shirt, his soleless shoes and unshei-
tered head, eagerly watching the gate OF
LIS oeu lOI tue dppIoeSh ~
And there he watches until the last tints of
the golden ''InSian summer evening are
giving way to the raw en-. chilling ling WIND nd Of
a file of sloyenly negroes, carrying dirty
wooden buckets, filed with cold boiled
rice, come in. He gets one pint of this for
his breakfast, dinner, supper, his aH Of
food for twenty-four hours. do not pre-.
tend that this happens every day, but it
happens. And when this is not tKreportion,
the moiety of bread of unsifted corn meal
and tough poor beef is no great improve
ment. ~
o God! can any man who can carry
musket, ride a horse or WELD a sabre, sit
At home ques,y ana x'o" aese u, 'ig e
over every prairie and shake every hill top
n the West, ITO arms! to arms a rescue!
rescue!n' until our brave boys are deliv-
,red from their semi-barbarOus captors,
who are numbering them by the slow tor
ure Of starvation. GERoLD.
no story IF tho Prasdopt io