The Shasta courier., 1864-05-28
The Bushwhackers.

A correspondent of st. Louis paper thus
paragraphs the bnshwacker:
1t would require an artist of superative
skill to paint to you the bushwhacker as he
is. He comes from the dregs of a degraded
population. He cannot write his name. His
speech is a mixture of falsehoods and impu-
dence expressed in the worst English spoken
by white men, and apparently culled from
the corruptions of plantation slang. lie be
longs to gang of from FIVE to forty in num-
ber His family occupy cabin remote from
the highway or the families of several
throng together and occupy the large house
by the wayside, of some absconded rebel. lie
never owned a nigger but he may have been
nigger driver on some neghborlng planta
ton. He has sandy complexion; has for
whiskers number of struggling dirt colored
hairs that grow straight downward; he sell
dom washes his hands or changes his shirt.
He visits his wife, a woman as dirty and ig-
norant as himself, and who chews tobacco
and dips snuff. as often as it is safe for him
to do it; the balance of the time he spends
in the brush, or in committing robberies on
unprotected Union families. He has aleader
a little more daring than himself. Ten of
them dare not attack three armed soldiers,
but five will 90 to the house of man who
has little money and torture him by setting
him on live Goals of fire, or pulling out his
toe-nails with bullet-moulds till he tells them
where his treasure is concealed; and the rob-
berry completed, they retire to their rendez
vous. His fare is the simplest and coarsest
"a shoat which lives half wild in the woods,
which is lank, poor and runs like a deer,
which is brought down by rife shot, badly
dressed, boiled to rags and eaten fresh. with
little corn bread. He has half dozen dogs,
and as manv dirty, tow-headed children, lives
in wretchedness, squalor and crime. But he
is a good Judge Of a horse, and has one supe-
rior in speed and bottom to those of any of
his pursuers, and it is often of the best Ken
lucky or Louisiana blood All seasons are
alike to him, but his more daring feats are
performed when the leaves are on the trees,
and efectually hide the approaches to the
thicket in some rayine which is his hiding.
place. His arms are big knife, one or two
navy revolvers, and a rifle or a shot gun, or
possibly a carbine captured from some strag-
Cling soldier whom he had murdered and
stripped. His original uniform is, of course,
a ragged suit of butternut; but he now often
has a blue coat or pant, the spoil of someun-
usual and fendish butchery. He obtains
amn unlllon through some nelTHDOr. VINO VS.
its provost marshal, says he was always
loyal, takes the oath and obtains permit
to carry arms, including, of course, the right
to buy powder and lead. When the Federal
army is in the vicinity, he may be seen plant
ing corn in the day time-at night he will
be shooting the pickets. If his house is Wis
tied, and his wife asked where he is, the un
form answer is, have no husband;' or,
he has gone South or, 20, he is with
your'ns, intimating that he is in the Federal
army. And she is so ready with the lie that
she often names the command to which she
says he belongs, and states where it is sta
toned. He owns allegiance to no Govern
ment; is bound by no laws; is common
bandit and robber, with no sentiment of chiv-
airy to make his adventures romantic; no no.
sions of valor no intelligence no generosity
to divide him from other beasts of prev If
this cruel war is over, he will still, for his
life time, haunt the scenes of his depredations
and walk amid the rude graves of his victims;
his gang will defy the law and its minions
he will be the curse the curse to kill WITH
which the rebellion invoked, and till his gen.
GRAFTON pass away, he will be the terror to
neighboring quiet and the foe to civil Gov
ernment.'