The Nashville daily union. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1862-1866, 1864-03-17
4 War Of Fer0ciOus Retaliation Re.
commended.

commended.
From the Richmond Enquirer, March !.
Perhaps the people perhaps even
States-are now at length awakened
/ to the true nature of the struggle IN
| progress. We have been in the habit
of regarding it as war between ma
tons; our enemies have all looked upon
/ it as military execution upon mu-
/ tinous crew The means by which
/ their soldiers are desired to "write
/ their names in inehaceable letters on
the hearts of their countrymen," are
1 by rushing at night upon a populous
city, burning it down with turpentine
and oakum = in soaked balls" turning
/ loose some thousands of ruffian prison
ers, brutalized to the deepest degree
| by acquaintance with every horror of
war, who have been confined on an
island for year, far from all means of
| indulging their strong sensual appe
tites-inviting this pandemomium to
work their will on the unarmed citi-
zens, on the women, gentle and simple,
of Richmond, and on all their proper
! ty--in a word, to sack with the usual
accompaniment attending that opera
tonic kill Jeff Davis and his mutinous
crew, and slip away as they came To
| burn not only houses and bridges, but
everything else which might be of use
to the rebels, barns, boats, stores, pro-
Visions and to slaughter all horses and
cattle which they could not carry away
with them.
The results, indeed, of this tremen-
dous intention of rayags and butchery
were contemplate. The picked COM
mand, selected from brigades and regi-
ments" for the thieying 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 Rich
mond and their balls of oakum and
turpentine, instead of Kissing and fam
ing in our dwellings, and amidst terri
| fed women and children, as was expec-
1 ted, had to be thrown into the Pamun-
key 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
tanned large armies to meet and battle
their far greater armies in fair gfiht on
the field, they think it still an allowa-
BILE, nay virtuous and glorious pro
ceeding, to steal upon our chief magis-
trate and his cabinet in their beds, and
after burning their houses, to hang
| them up on the next tree, just as the
French in Algiers would do to Kabyle
chief and his enoampment in the de-
sert, or the English in India to some
Nena Sahib or Ghoorka marauder
Now-it is as well to look our posi-
ton straight in the face-we are bar
barians, in the eyes of our enemies.
Our way of life is, according to the die
tim of one of these philosophers, 'the
sum Of all barbarism Against US,
everything is fair We also, though we
have newspapers, and orators, and
certain command of the English Ian
guage, are vet 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 sim
pie fact, let us take it as we will, that
those enemies against whom we fondlv
believe we are waglng an honorable
war, as nation against nation, are car
rying on against us the very same sort
warfare that English armies think good
enough for the revolted Sepoys and
mutinous hill tribes. If they can sur
prise, by any sort of artifce, our kraal
of Richmond, and deliver it over to the
mercy of their troops, and hold in it
one good carnival of lust and rapine,
they write their names in imperishable
letters on the hearts of their country
men. This situation of affairs was al
ways well known to us; but it was
doubted or denied by many Confeder-
ates 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 burn
ing and robbing our houses, stripping
and violating the virtuous and often re-
fined Christian women of this place,
shooting, stabbing, hanging the high
est civil officers of the law, and mas
sacring Unfortunately the popula-
ton.
This is wholesome kind of reflection
for our own countrymen We believe
it will sting them We think it highly
probable that they viii peremptoRilY
demand of their government some
practical, unmistakable assertion of our
full determination to be treated as hon
orable enemies and civilized people.
And what-some may ask-what then
would you have our government TO do?
turn the soar INTO s0dr Of determination?
Certainly, certainly; it is already war of
determination, of indiseriminate slaugh-
ter and plumber on the part of our enc
mics. Their sparing the lives of pris-
oners and occasional exchanges, form
but temporary suspension of the rule,
necessitated by our holding prisoners
also; but the true Gninl1ts, the authentic
Yankee theory Of the war, is manifest
in the actual proceedings of cur enemy
wherever he has the power, and espeei-
ally, and most signally, in this code of
instructions for sack and massacre in
Richmond Our government owes it to
its own army and to its own people, if
il cannot at the moment retaliate such
atrocities in kind, at least to bring to
condign punishment the robbers who,
in the guise of soldiers and under pre-
tence of war, have been caught lurking
about Richmond with their oakum balls
and turpentine, and their written pro-
gramme for numbering the chief mag
istrate and setting FIRE to all the houses
till the city is burnt in a hundred places
at once, and then inviting eight thou
sand blood-thirsty, lustful ruffians TO
gut the blazing mansions, rape their
mistresses, and knock the masters in the /
head in the dreadful confusion.
But if we hang these wretohes then /
the enemy viii select an equal number I
for the gallows2 Not ,ckile zee hold sir I
teen thousand hostages But if we shrink 4
from that there is another alternative, 4
and tie only one Ltft lss-honq1q and mas
Sacre all on one side W. can choose bctlceea 4
tie tlCO other choice there IS none
CAIRO, March l4-Col Hawkins, eth (
Tennessee Cavalry, who has been out .
with a force scouting in West Tonnes 4
see for the las ten DAYS, thus telegraphs I
from Union City to Gen. Reid:
reached this camp with my entire 4
command at 3 p NJ to-day. have 80 .
prisoners, many Of them Of the worst
caste. On the 18th / had a running