Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1863-05-28


fifty 1or?"
His nearer nodded in sullen silence-per
haps failing to take the same chrrrtGl view
of his expedition to country whele, will
the habitudes Of a Sybarite, he would b,
compelled to assume the diet of pauper
the despair of felOn, and the trenchinl
tools OF negro. Indeed, most of the able
bodied men on board, apart from the pans
of leaving the home of time, and il
several cases property to be confiscated t
the amount of hundreds of thousands of dol
lars, seemed to recognize their Transports
ton to the cOnfederacy as a punishment o
the severest kind. There was no laughter
among them - hardly even forced smile
The women, belonging to a sex not yet con
scripted at the south, were as much more
reckless as they were safer. They waved
their handkerchiefs, smiled scorntully, anC
looked prettily fierce. No valuable Inference
regarding the loyalty of St. Louis can bC
drawn from the demeanor of the crowd tina
thronged the levee, as the secesh popula
ton mainly staid away, for fear of identify
ing itself and also its fate with the baniShed
The ONLY syllable of regret winch | hearC
spoken, came from an old negro who looked
in beside me at the saloon door, and ex
claimed -
"Lor Dress me, eff dar amt ole Massa Lew
is! Wall, Use rale sorry he's gwine to bC
sent sout-he guy me quarter once"
If | may judge for myself, no eastern man
till he comes here, can form the taintest con
ception of what this war means to border loy.
alists. | can tell you there is no dilettanttsm
in these southwestern people on either side o
the struggle. have just come from ride
about the suburbs of St. Joseph. On my
N I lie % ~;
soldiers, each driven into town by a farmer
and accompanied by his sons. The soldier:
having been on scouting party in the int.
rior and captured three families of ''butter.
nuts" had compelled them to hitch up theit
teams and bring themselves into Jail, and
their horses and wagons to be confiscated
This ingenious method of self-punishment is
not untrequently applied to the seceSh OF
these western counties.
"Butternut' here means something rather
different from our eastern term "copperhead,'
though the situation of the latter is all that
"maketh them to differ" The ''butternut' is
not ''dishonorabe peace" man, but dis
honorable warrior. He loves his farm too
well to leave it for Price or Hindman, but his
heart is with them, and he only waits till they
return victorious, to join their raid upon lis
Union neighborS-burn houses, steal horses,
ravish women, and hang old men, Mean
while he stays at home to Smuggle rebel mails
and play the spy-only venturing upon vague
threats Of day of fire and slaughter, when
he has been heated by news of Union vic
tory or an overdose of ''tanglefOOt." The
retribution | saw accorded by the soldiers was
cemency compared with that wreaked fire.
quently of late days by the threatened loyal
lists. During the past week seventeen men
hor1 tolrr tIn,, 1 1.
by their Union neighb0rs. just ont here in
Andrew county, for abetting rebel guerrillas
and threatening loyal people with future
raid by Prices men. Till got out here and
saw exactly how things stand, | should have
called this unjustifable violence, but the tact
is that in these sparsely settled border cOun-
ties the bare problem is whether UnionistS
shall kill or be killed. Every one of the senv-
enteen victims" whom our eastern copper
heads would probably raise such howl over,
were men who would not hesitate to cut their
neighbors' Threats the moment the presence OF
rebel force made it safe for them Our
government affords the Union foresttrs liter
ally no protection against such foes, and for
their wives and chidren's sake they take the
law into their own hands, the solidest and Sc
datust Union men in the towns applauding
them.
At this very moment there run loose about
St. Joseph two men who held offices in the
rebel army whipped by Curtiss troops at Pea
Ridge, Thurman and Davis by name; one of
them was put under $40 900 bonds to keep the
peace, the other banished, with an injunction
neVer to return; yet here they are again,
among the people whose brothers they helped,
the most hellish set of ruffians ever collected
in secessia to hack, slit and disembowel. the
government taking no more notice of them
than if they were a pair of turtle doves.
They will wake up some night before long
with moose around their necks, and the limb
of a cottonwood tree will put them in that
suspense from which it relieves their neigh
bors. 1t is not my intention to defend Lynch
law, but let me assure you than any reader of
the Evening Post would say amen to such a
proceeding, could he live where his only
chance of self-preservation lay in his own
hands. Tell the copperhead journals this lit
tie story, from an eye witness of the scene,
now in st. Joseph.
AT Little Rock, in Arkansas, lived numer-
GUS body of warm Union men, praying for a
sight of the old flag and day of deliverance,
as none ever prayed save the men of Leyden.
They met nightly in cellars-had their secret
grips and pass words-and with all the hero
ism of martyrs bore suspicion, taunts, threats
anu hiOICuGS3 uhhlhCilllIS III lLSlI ISsOiullOH
never to enter the rebel ranks alive. When
Hindman occupied Little Rock in force,
twentyseven of these men were arrested and
imprisoned on suspicion-their worst enemy
accusing them Of no overt act against the re-
bel government. One day their wives, child
rem, parents, brothers and sisters were invited
by Hindmar's order to come and visit them.
Their dungeon doors were opened, and arm
and arm with their rejoicing families they
were suffered to wander under guard about
the town and in the fields. The bright sun
light and sweet air of this unwonted freedom
intoxicated them into credulity. They and
the dear ones from whom they had been so
long sundered we're felcitating themselves
with the hope of permanent liberty, and fan
cied that the tiger Hindman had forgotten his
taste for blood. Just at the limits of the town
the officer in command babe the families of
the suspects halt-and marching these twenty
seven brave men out of the very arms of love
ranged them in an open lot before file of
rihemen, and there shot all of them in plain
sight of their shrieking households.
Do you know that since | got to Missouri l
have not been able to caution eye-witnesses
of such things against ''violent measures" with
the friends of Price!