Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1864-05-12

Hs-saa brias 30 auch good cut OF what Ia la Ia own
nature evil and which, without the controlling Providence
| OF God, would be only evil, and that continually
" But all this-much of it lying in the distant future
viii not and ought not to bad the eyes OF wise men
TO the vast and manifold evils which war brings in its
Tram, and civil war above all others: for these evils
come III our day. they for to meet for us TO do
what we can TO and therefore must needs
look them fairly in the face like men, and know clearly
what we are about There can DO no true wisdom in
gophg AFTER such things In the dark and stumbling
silence or bndolded when might just we'll open
our eyes and look all round the field calmly aud cooy in
broad daylight.
There every probability that before the war is over
be0een oo and three millions of the male population of
this country, in the flower of their life and strength will
have seen more or less OF military service sckoning the
Southern States part Of the Union taking into
count their armies alsO and after the experience of
arms will have returned to the pursuits of peaceful e
10 say nothing OF the hundreds OF thousands who will by
that tune have fallen the Id will have died
IN PRISONS Ia hospitals from the effect Of exposures
and hardships In actual service What is the effect of
upon the characters of all these men Some may indeed
learn the lesson Of obedience to authority which they
never knew before Some may be sobered by the ami-
arty with DEATH Some may have been rescued, by the
dangers and hardshps OF the camp from the peril
GUS dangers OF luxury, vice. aud crime, at home But
that the trade of ismorally and regouslya benefit
TO the mass OF those who engaged in it, who will
ture to assert 2"
That the most deplorable atrocities have some
times been committed by our own troops in the
South, as well as by the enemy, may not be denied
The familiarity with scenes of blood and violence
the cleaning out" of properties held by women
and children the sight of thousands turned adrift
to hunger and restitution the sacking and burn
ing of whole villages and towns; the miseries Of
the poor blacks, who are abused in every way, and
are being rapidly exterminated-all these things
undoubtedly tend, as our contemporary recites,
"to harden the earlier and better senstiyeness of
the conscience until enormity ceases to be either
strange or repulsive" But that these atrocities
are either SO general or SO wilful as to justify
injurious impression to the discredit of our national
character, as compared with that of other nations
in time Of civil war, does not SO clearly appear
On this point we may cite the testimony of Prof.
SMITH when he says:
The chairman of your Manchester meeting tells us
that this is the most ferocOus that has been waged
for century Not to mention the Spanish civil war in
which the aged mother of chief put to death and
horribly avenged or the days of June Paris when
quarter was gwen, and poisoned lint sent to the
wounded, the lish rebellion of 1898 falls we'll within
century Read the account of the reign of terrorthe
scourgngs half hangngs, ptchcappngs, pcketings burn
lnRs plunderDgs, massacres, carried by the Anglo
irish artocrscy and their satellites during the vceroyay
of Lord Camdeu Read it in rebel histories but in
the correspondence Of brave and loyal soldiers such
CornWals and Abercrombie who turned away sickened
from the sight and learn how terrible and how difficult
control the passions of civil Butler has gone
uncensured did AngloIr terrorists ten thousand
times more Infamous The wrongs of the Irish people
brought under the notice of the House Lords but
the House of Lords bishops and ALL turned deaf
the complaint"