Delaware State journal and statesman., 1865-08-29
GENERAL LEE.
fFrom the Chicago Rennhlicnn. l

(From the Chicago Republican.
| SO long as General Lee remains in this
country, and is allowed not only to 90 about
without punishment, but to proclaim disloyal
anu obnoxious opinions, such as he fought
for against the United States there Will
always be feeling of dissatisfaction among
loyal citizens There is something intensely
calling in the fact that the articles of conyen-
ton between him and Grant were 80 loosely
worded as to afford a loophole for the escape
OF such traitor from the clutches of the
Jaw. Nothlng could have been more unfor-
tunate than this clerical lapsus 1t furnishes
what would otherwise have been the spotless
glory OF the surrender on the part of our
great general. A little lawyer cunning, a
less magnanimity and generosity toward a
cruel and INSCRIPTIONS foe whom he had
already yanquished, whose armies were at
his mercy, outgeneraled and beaten at every
point, would have left the rebel chief who
was the intellect and the heart of the ferocious
/ war Waged against us, to be dealt with
according to the forms and usages of law.
| AS the case now stands, General Grant
whose presence in the field is inspiration and
whose battles are conquests, suffered himself
to be drawn into an amnesty. The result is
that our Government, always humane and
merciful, even at tine expense Con memorable
| occasions) of justice and self-preservation,
jealous of its honor and its spoken word,
even though long experience had proved the
rebels themselves to be utterly devoid of all
| faith--the result, we say, is that the Govern
ment decides to accept the literal reading of
the convention, and to permit that arch
traitor to the Union to go at large, without
| arrest or trouble.
Far be il from us to impugn the wisdom or
the legality of this decision, with any view
to oppose or embarrass the Government. 1t
is certainly magnanimous proceeding. But
| who is this man What has he done to
| entitle him to this matchless immunity
What qualities of humanity has he displayed
during the war to justify this forbearance
and mercy We do not call to mind q
single public action of his, which does not
sink him below the rest of mankind Where
was he ever known to extend the smallest
civillty to prisoner in his charge When
was his voice urged in remonstrance against
the cruel treatment of Union soldier in the
prisons of Richmond Is there man in all
our armies who knows or has ever heard Of
one good deed, one act of charity or mercy,
one look OF compassion, one word of consola-
lation as proceeding from him in all his con-
neetion with our own men during the war ?
On the contrary, was he not of that conclave
which projected the cold-blooded murder, by
starvation, of our poor brothers at Anderson
vile ? By whose orders were our men and
officers shot like beasts for the crime of
showing themselves too near the windows of
Libby prison2 Who ordered the same fate
to the martyrs of Andersonville if they
J obtruded so much as a foot or an arm beyond
the dead line in that awful and appalling
shambles =?
A single word from this arch.rebel at
Richmond would have put a stop to these
horrible butcheries would have mitigated
the condition of the sick and wounded
would have given bread to our famished,
broken n.hearted, hopeless utterly crushed
soldiers there would have provided fuel,
and shelter, and clothing for them, and have
spared them little, if only very little, of
torture on their way to blessed death Did
he utter that word ? Did he try to aid any
! one ofour unhappy brothers Let their own
commission OF inquiry into the prison diaei-
pline answer. 1t is there written that all
this horrible programme Of murder by inches,
| this unspeakably Internal system of shooting
our helpless soldiers in prison, was deliber-
ately conceived and authorized by the Rich
} mond authorities, of whom Jefferson Davis
: and General Lee were the chiefs. With an
inconceiyable daring they put climax upon
| these worse than barbarian deeds by solemnly
defending the whole damnable policy as part
of the legitimate functions of war 1t was
} their purpose, they said, to cripple and
destroy our armies. They had right to do
so, according to all warlike usages as good
right to staTve OF poison as to kill them on
the field.
a The report of our own commission upon
. this most sorrowfal subject enters into the
Y details of these murders. Those gaunt
Q CHASTITY, withered bodies of once proud and
muscular men; those grim and horrid
skeletons, without flesh, held together by
J tendons and covered by yellow skin those
shrunken frames and muscleless legs, with
the heads of giants and the limbs of dwarfs !;
those living men, starved and frost bitten,
/, naked also, who awoke in the keen, biting
j air, as from bed of icicles, and found that
their feet had fallen from their legs, and stood
! before them on the hard ground black and
a shapeless, as if they had been old cast-off
9 boots These are the kind of things which
I lie at Lees door. He and Davis are, without
I question, responsible for these crimes. The
E people are well aware Of this, and by this
time the facts are patent to the whole civilized
= world Lee has been extolled by Secession
+ lists and all kinds of traitors in the North, as
5 a great general, pink and pattern OF the
n chivalry, an exemplary gentleman. But we
II look in vain for the proof of any one of these
IS allegations, in the actual life of the man.
z. What are the great battles that he has won
II Where are the evidences of his chivalry and
gentility ? They are illusive. cold-blooded,
r commonplace in every sense mediocre man,
a save in that quality of animal courage which
e he shares with the bulldog, he stands before
us to-day blackened by inhumanities for
u which language has no name.
y That this man, who has violated his parole
s by words OF cheer and treason to his own
o soldiers when he sent them to their homes,
h by insolently holding a sort of leyee in his
IS house in Richmond, and declaring and de-
J, tending his treason in the presence of United
States armies-that this man should be al
lowed, on the specified grounds, to go scot
free is indeed a refinement of the sensibility
of honor iii be proper and fitting that the
brutal murderer who kept the Andersonville
prison should be tried for his life, and he but
J. an instrument in the hands OF Davis and
Lee. upon what ground ought either of these
the intellectual originators of the entire
scheme of cruelty which welters with the
- blood of Union soldiers all over the Confed-
a. eracy-upon what ground ought either oi
IL these to escape?
N Davis, of course, is to be tried by court.
Il Lee seems to be protected by the terms OF
his surrender from such trial and from the
N lust punishment it might result in but from
a trial and condemnation in the tribunal OF
is public opinion ne is not and cannot be
ne protected