The Columbia daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1865, 1865-05-20
COLOMBIA
Saturday Morning, May. 20, 1865.
Morals of the Highway

r,under on every hand. Our stables arc
insecure. We hear of nightly stealing;
horses and mules being the chief objects
OF the thieves, at present. Provisions.
stores, bacon, bread, cloth and medicines,
these were stolen as long as any remained
to steal within these precincts. The Off
cia!s Of the Confederate Government are
charged numcrously with inauguratiug
this reign Of plumber We are told of
numbers departing for their own homes
with the supplies and public stores left in
their possession for the ben eft of the sol
diers. These arc everywhere left dcsti.
tutc, to droop and even die along the way
side; or, following the examples set ca oal.v
by the people and the officials to become
highway robbers, as it we're, in self.de.
fence and for the maintenance of life
Bands, TO the number of sixty or seventy
are understood to be haunting the imme-
diate precincts of this exhausted city,
preyiug upon what miserable Debris of
property has been lcltto the citizens from
the confagration. These outlaws are all
armed. In many instances their names
are given. Yet we hear of no prosecu-
tiens. Ordinances of God and man are
violated with impunity. and the offenders
scorn equally to feel, the distress which
pleads to their pity and sympathy and
the laws which threaten punishment. And
this seems to be the case in all quarters
On the road between this place and
Orangeburg there is reported to be for
midable gang of plunderers, numbering at
least two hundred, who live by pIunder.
ing the traveller. Parties who have gone
forth, seeking their own or other homes
for bread for their wives and little ones,
have been stripped of everything and
been sent back hero, iii their nakedness
70 starve! And So it must continue TO be 50
long as authority sleeps in its easy chair,
and the law forbears to resent the outrage
which boldly pluclls her by the beard, and
tears the robe from her back and the mace
Of power from her grasp. We have magis-
trates who hear all these thngs-to whom
the names of offenders have been given
easy to arrest, who walk the streets daily;
nay, divide their spoils Gas we are told) in
tie very streets and in the open face of
day; and yet authority sleeps; power, in
its hands, becomes but O chGld's bauble,
and the FOOLS cap supcrsedes the sable cap
of judgment on her head. There is no
authority, because there's no people The
people are, in too many cases, linked too
closely with the offenders, to goad justice
into the exercise Of power. Shall we
wonder that God DEGREES our humiliation
that ilc forces us down upon our knees,
with our mouths in the dust, and makes
our shame grinning and a spectacle in
the eyes OF all the nations. 1t is a great
crror-nay, II crime-to charge these sins
upon our soldiers Many of these, no
doubt, are guilty, and, in the wretched
condition in which they have so long
lived--in the pitiablo condition in which
they have been ft-abandoned to their
fate by the people for whom they have so
long blcd and fought-abandoned by the
Government, which has wasted their
strength and left them without the means
Of returning to their homes-sacrificir
them to the last--for these, there would
be some excuse; and while we should
lament, it would not surprise US to behold
the brave soldier CT Lees or Johnstons
army occasionally subsiding into the out
law and the highway robber. But the
greater number of those who now ravage
She country are not sollicrs-they have
skulked the war-have never lifted wea-
pom in the cause, and are simply thieves,
:ncendiaries, rutiians, robbcrs-havine