Western sentinel. [volume] (Winston [i.e. Winston-Salem], N.C.) 1856-1886, 1864-05-19
A VOICE FROM JOHNSON'S Is
LAND.

LAND.
We publish below communication ad-
dressed to Gov Vance, by the officers and
soldiers who have, and we believe, are
still held in captivity on Johnsons Island
in Lake Erie. It is capital production,
written remarkably well, and presents
facts and arguments from stand point
and under circumstances tina. caunot fail
to carry conviction to the mind OF every
honest end impartial reader. The gentle
men who signed this paper have had op-
portunities for observation and the facill
ties Of gathering facts. that enable them
to set forth the objects and purposes of our
enemies, as we'll as the hopes and fears of
our friends and sympathisers at the North,
knowingly and understandingly. The get
ting up of this paper was no party move
ment. The signers, some of them gentle-
men not unknown to fame and of recog-
nized ability, have belonged to different
political parties, and, we presume, had no
idea that there would be any contest for
Gubernatorial honors in this State next
summer. The tribute to Gov. Vance was
an honest one, and no less merited tina n
honest and disinterested in intent. There
are 227 signere, who represent nearly ev-
cry county in the State Conservative.
U. S. MILITARY Prison,
Johnson's Island, March 81, 1864.
Gov. VANCE:
Sir-At meeting Of the
officers from North Carolina confined in
this prison, yesterday, we the undersigned
were appointed a committee to express to
you the intense satisfaction with which we
have marked the distinguished ability and
lofty patriotism which have characterized
your administration 1t has been With
peculiar pride during this, our long and
tedious imprisonment, that In every wind
that has brought to our ears whisper from
the land of our birth and our unchange-
able love, we have heard the utte:ance of
our own sentiments, the echo of our pray
ers, Of our highest hopes and purest aspir-
ations, in the manly and patriotic language
OF the Governor OF our State. Exiles from
our homes and country, captives in the
land OF those who hate and would destroy
us, we watch with anxious concern the
progress of events and the course OF .he
war, and note with unmingled pleasure
the manifestations of ardent patriotism
and unyieldlns frmness among the masses
of the people of our own State. But, sir.
it is with more than ordinary pleasure that
we revert to your late noble effort at
Wilkesboro', SO genuine in its arguments,
and withai SO hopeful and confident of sue
cess, that every son of the old State felt a
glow of pride in the reflection that these
grand utterances emanated from his own
honored chief magistrate. Sir, your ex
position of the policy of the Fed
eral Government, your startling por-
traiture of the miseries that would be en-
dured by our unhappy country, and the
expressions and indignities that mould be
heaped upon her in case of submission,
are 50 forcibly verified by the action of
the dominant party in this country, that
no reasoning man, enjoying as We do the
unlimited access TO the leading journals of
all political parties here, can fail to realize
the tact, that even the most appalling ap-
prehensions of misery that have presented
themselves to the minds Of our most saga
cloua statesmen, even the most hideots
pictures Of ruin that have been painted by
our most eloquent country men, would fall
: far short OF the realities Of the doom that
would awajt rs, should we DO 50 dement,
cd % to lay down those arms and disband
those armies, that have hitherto protected