Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1864-06-16
The Rebel Press on the Campaign.
ExTRAcTsFRoN RlcHM0ND PAPERS
from the Richmond Examiner. May 2sth.l


always despised. 1t does indeed cost us heav-
lily to rid ourselves of all connection with the
Yankee nation; but then this radiance is
worth the cost.
And perhaps We should never have set the
right value upon the independence we fight
for if it had not cost US so dear. We might
never have been so fully aud deeply consci-
Gus of the great necessity which was upon US.
for our own honor and our children's we'll
being, to cut off that abandoned nation from
our society, if it had not been permitted to
develop and display, at so many points and
for so long a time, all the dark depths of its
hateful character, all its bastard cruelty and
mean thievery, and unparalleled fertility of
falsehood.
Now we know fully from what a rotten car
cass we have cut ourselves loose; and to
escape its pollution no price is too great
Rather than to submit to that foul
embrace again, we would bid higher, and still
higher, until nothing were left to the few sur
vivors of US but bare life.
La this sense we may almost be said to be
in some sort obliged to the Yankee nation
1t has more than justified our secession, and
has lett, in the regions of our country which
have once fallen within its military lines, GER
tain bitter and burning memories which, in
their little children to thank God in their
nightly prayers for the rescue of their native
land out of the clutches of an evil generation
The many unmistakable symptoms of des-
peration visible in this years campaign-the
employment of Grant himself with absolute
dictatorial powers, because he was known to
be the man who would either effect his pur-
pose or throw away his army-the insane
drunkenness in which he drowned the senses
of his troops before hurting them up against
the muzzles of Confederate carnon-the
reckless and unsparing ferocity with which
quiet country places are devastated and COW
cred with smoking ruins, and soaked with
blood Of unresisting people-all these things
ought to encourage US; they consist well with
what the enemy's public press has at any rate
plainly avowed: that if the grand combined
movement of 1854 should fall then all was
lost; that armies could no longer be raised to
continue the invasion; that anarchy and f.
nancal ruin would break up their whole social
and political system, and that the United
States would be no more nation.
And that campaign (may we not already
say?) has fed; its force is expended and
broken. OF it's four grand armies, one, in
the Trans Mississippi, IS no longer an army
another, in Bermuda Hundred, has no care
save to protect itself from destruction, in
front by entertainments, in rear by a feet,
the two other armies, and the two greatest,
have advanced indeed with tremendous waste
of men and material, to the points at which
Lee and Johnston at the head of fresh and
eager troops say to them: No further!
hitherto shalt thou got" All the elan, all the
drunken vigor of the opening campaign is
gone the pluck is taken out of it; and the
invincibe Yankee host or what is left of them,
can do no better than turn upon the already
plundered population in their rear, rob few
houses, ravish few women, cruelty few
"secesh" planters and go home.
If this be indeed the last grand effort of
the enemy, as we hope and believe, then,
how dear soever our independence shall have
cost u.s. we shall still say it was cheap. We
do not envy our enemies their plumber. Such
wealth will never thrive with them; let
them keep the spoons and the jewelry.-
Hereafter any Yankee-we were about to
say Yankee woman, but let US say miscegene-
trix-will be afraid to wear diamond in
reputable company lest persons shonld COM
pliment her, with mischievous smile, upon
her good taste in brilliants. As for the
choice books and pictures which some con-
noisseur thieves had packed up and carried
leries, and to give them some idea what
books and pictures good taste might admit
into decent house, it is doubtful whether
these acquisitions will do them much good.
When nation has grown thoroughly cor
rupt, it can never learn anything more-only
unlearn what it once knew
On the whole we can well afford to make
the rogues welcome to all the profit they
have got out of their invasion, especially as
with the last day of their last campaign our
cost ends and theirs begins. "Nations hay
ing no future state, always expiate their
crimes in this world" and no nation ever vet
ran up so long an account of CRIME, or so
amply earned hell upon EARTH where shall
be wailing and crashing of teeth.
From the Richmond Sentinel
THE LAST TWO WEEKS
During the past two weeks, the war has
ragged with fury unexampled in all our pre-
vious campaigns. The forces of the enemy
have been directed by a general whose one
idea is to hurl them into battle Reckless
alike of the lives of his soldiers and the
arts of strategy, he has trusted for victory to
the momentum of his attack and the rapiditv
of his blows. He has hoped to crush his en-
envy by his mere weight. He fights by
main strength and awkwardness," combined,
it must be confessed, with great industry and
pentnacity. AS consequence, the opera
tions when have ensued since his crossing
of the Rapidan present series of great bat
ties and severe skirmishes not before equaled
in the war, accompanied with sacrifice of
life on the part Of his soldiers that should
touch the profoundest sensbilities of a mon
ster, if that monster were their general.
Here follows list of engagements in all
of which GRANT is represented to have been
repulsed with great slaughter.