Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1864-08-17
In no one thing have the rebels shown |


more tact and diplomatic ability since this
war commenced than in their newspaper
writing. Any one who has intelligently
noticed the studied character of the lead
ing editorials which have continually aP-
peared in the Richmond papers, the En-
aninsr especially, will notice how conspic-
uously and deliberately they have been
aimed at the supposed vuInerability of
Northern sentiment. The articles referred
TO have not been adapted half SO much to
home audiences as they have been to. the
latent sympathy Supposed to be accessible
and arousable at the North. 1t would, but
for this view, appear to be very silly in
the rebel editors to be writing 10 the turgid
style employed by them about their chiv-
alry-their high-born qualities-their in
viucibility-their resources-their more
than knight-errant hardihood and endu-
rance. Suppose that Union papers were to
follow such a style. How ridiculous it
would be to their readers. And yet they
could do it with just as much truth as the
Richmond papers. A man is not a born
embodiment of super humanity because he
is native of any particular State in this
Union. We will admit that association,
education and indoctrination have great
deal to do in insulEng sentimental
bravery in men. And We will further
admit that in the South points of so. called
honor, adjudicable by the duello code, were
held in higher esteem and more generally
acted upon than in the free States
So far as the practice of arms is con-
cerned, and 30 far as that practice gave
certain sort of recklessness to those made
familiar with their use and abuse,
limited proportion of the Southern people
were better prepared at the outset for SOL
diership than the great mass of people in
the free States. The South also had an
other advantage. The country was sparse
" settled and all manner of frontier
habits prevailed even in old settled COM
muuities. To hunt and shoot was part of
the experience of every body. With many
1t was an almost constant employment
The same habit of life gave our Western
soldiers conspicuous advantages over those
from the East. This fact is the only ex
PLANTATION as to why in some instances
Southern soldiers have seemed to face
danger more unAinchingly than Union SOL
diears. To rest the explanation on any
other grounds argues an easy SUSCEPTIBLE
ty to rebel bravado. 1t has been the fash
ion for Southern men-meu who saw and
now see the capital to be made out of ito
absolutely claim for themselves and their
people at home an essential superiority in
personal prowess over Northern men. And
this claim they predicated mainly on the
fact that Northern congressman would not
accept their challenges to fight duels-that
Northern rivers we're not infested, as were
the Southern waters, with travelling and
gambling desperadoes-thatN Northern agri-
cultural fairs were not bloody glsdiatorisl
theatres where horses were run and men
were shot and stabbed for a heated word of
insult and that Northern village elections
and Northern county court days were not
30 many tides ire," the events of which
filled whole bloody columns of the local
press. The seeming element of ferocity in
the Southern character-such as led their
soldiers to initiate the indians at Pea Ridge
and at Fort Fillow, is an element that has
always been wanting in the Union soldiers
in this war. Is it an element to be admired
Is it an element of disciplined courage
Is it an element that appreciates what it is
fighting for, aud that could be trusted and
substituted for intellectual moralei
By parading and rehearsing every exhi-
bition of such desperation the Southern
papers have sought to intimidate if not &C.
tually to demoralize the North: They have
sought thus to overawe enlistments by
leading Northern men to believe that death
was their certain portion, if ever the South
ern soldiers got good chance at them.
Such was the game of these very men be-
fore the war. They practced it in Con-
gress, and they followed up the advantage
there gained and the impression there
made at every hotel, at every watering
place In the North. 1t was almost a cur
rent belief ct the commencement of this
struggle that Northern born men-men
who had not been made ferocious by the
sight of blood and brutality and slavery,
would not fight. London Times Russell,
in one of his most graphic letters, record
ed it as a fact that company of MISSISSIPPI
plans whom he travelled with on the cars,
actually bOasted that with their bowie
knives, which they were then brsudisbiug
all around him, they expected to take the
scalps of the unresistiug and supplicatiug
YsnkeeS who might be so rash as to invade
Virginia. The whole burden of their talk