The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1864-03-25

came. 10 Durn, not only houses ana
bridges, but everything else which might
be of use to the "rebels," barns, boats,
stores, provisions, and to slaughter all
horses and cattle which they could not
carry away with them. o.
The results, indeed of this tremendous
intention of ravage and butchery were
contemplate. The "picked command,
selected from brigades and regiments for
the thieving and numbering expedition,
was not quite up to the mark; "the
braves who were to have swept through
Richmond " were very easily swept away
from before Richmond; and their balls of
oakum and turpentine, instead of kissing
and flaming in our dwellings, and ami LIST
terrified women and children, as was ex-
pected, had to be thrown into the Pa
munkey for the present. Nevertheless,
the minute programme of that piece of
business cannot fail to be instructive.
After our government has existed for
three years, and has all that time main
tained large armies to meet and battle the
far greater armies in fair fight on the field,
they think it shall be allowable, nay vir-
tuous and glorious proceeding to steal
upon our chief magistrate and bis cabinet
in their beds, and after burning their
houses, to hang them up on the next tree,
just as the French in Alters would do to
a Kabyle chief and his ehcampment in the
desert, or the English in India to some
Nena Sahib or Ghoorka marauder.
NOw-It is as well to look our position
straight in the tace-we are barbarians, in
the eyes of our enemies. Our way of life
is, according to the .dictune of one of
those philosophers, "the sum of all barba-
rism." Against us, everything is fair.
We also, though we have newspapers, and
orators, and a certain command of the
English language, are yet so hemmed in,
for the present, by blockading fleets and
armies, that our protest, if We attempt
any, dies away in silence too. 1t is the
simple fact, let US take it as we will, that
those enemies against whom We fondly be-
lieve we are waging an honorable war, as
nation against nation, are carrying on
against us the very same sort of warfare
that English armies think good enough
for the revolted Sepoys and mutinous hill
tribes. If they can surprise, by any sort
vi a. CihOO3 Jul M odA VI lelCuIlOuu, anu w..
liver it over to the mercy of their troops,
and hold it in one good carnival of lust
and rapine, they will write their names in
imperishable letters on the hearts of their
countrymen. This situation of affairs was
always well known to US; but it was
doubted or denied by many Confederates
of feeble brain. Do they believe it now,
understand it now, that we have it under
the hand of Federal officers charged with
the task of breaking up this "hateful >
den of Richmond, burning and robbing
our houses, stripping and violating the vir-
tuous and often refined Christian women
of this place, shooting, stabbing, hanging
the highest civil officers of the law. and
massacreeing Unfortunately the popu-
lation.
This is wholesome kind of reflection
for our own countrymen. We believe il
will sting them. We think it highly prob
able that they will peremptorily demand
OF their government some practical, un-
mistakable assertion of our full deternlin
alton to be treated as honorable enemies
and civilized people. And what-some
may ask-what then would you have our
government to do?-turn the war into a
war OF determination Certainly, Ger.
tainly; it is already war of extermina.
ton, OF indscriminate slaughter and plum
der on the part of our enemies. Their
sparing the lives of prisoners and occa-
sional exchanges, form but temporary
suspension of the rule, necess;tated by our
holding prisoners also; but the true ami
mus, the authentic Yankee theory of the
war, is manitestly in the actual proceed
ings of our enemy wherever he has the
power. and especially, and most signally,
i'll this code of instructions for sack and
massacres in Richmond. Our government
owes it to its own army and to its people,
if it cannot at the moment retaliate such
atrocities in kind, at least to bring to con-
dign punishment the robbers who, in the
guise of soldiers and under pretense OF
war, have been caught lurking about
Richmond with their oakum balls and tur-
pentine. and their written programme for
numbering the chief magistrate and sek-
ting fire to all the houses till the city is
burnt in, hundred places at once, and
then inviting eight thousand blood thirsty,
lustful ruttianS to gut the blazing man.
sions, rape their mistresses, and knock the
masters in thu head in the dreadful con-
fusion.
But if we hang these wretches then the
enemy will select an equal number for the
gallows? Not while we hold sixteen
thousand hostages. But if we shrink from
that there is another alternative, and the
only one lett us-hanging and massacre all
Oh one side. We can choose between the
two; other choice there is none
APPEAL FOR THE HANGING OF THE PRISONERS.
From The Richmond Wing.
What then is to be done in order to ar.
rest this infamous practice? Our soldiers
should, in every instance where they cap
turc officers engaged in raids, character
lied by such acts OF incendiarism and wan
ton devastation and plumber as this last
raid has been, hang them instantly. II
thew are handed over as prisoners of war,
they at once come under the laws of regu-
lar warfare, and are subject to exchange.
Our government would have no response
blity in the matter Questions no doubt
woulEl arise, but they might well be met
by recurrence to the causes which led to
the action of cur soldiers. The punish.
ment meted out would certainly comport
as strictly with the rules of warfare as the
acts which provoke it. Let our soldiers,