The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1865-02-10


cility for ascertaining the fact. We
cannot suspect a character of this sort ol
playing part when you are not in his
power, and pretending, from interested
motives, to be courteous and humane
Uncharitable persons may suggest that
Sherman's march to.Atlanta was retreat
instead of an advance, and that he acted
upon the principle of "You let me alone
and will let you alone" We prefer to
believe, in the language of the corre-
spondent, that he is possessed of man
illness, generosity aid humanity" all of
which were illustrated in his so-calfed
determination proclamations." Those
proclamaticns, rightly interpreted, prove
that he is the most humane and merciful
Of Federal generals. He only proposed
to put the Southern people at once out
Of their misery, and translate them tor
better world.
We regret that the Carolinian's cor.
respondent should qualify his praises of
Sherman by tho idtimation that he may
have been insincereS in his tender treat
ment Of the people of Georgia, and only
seeking thereby to establish Union
feeling in that country. The corre-
spondcnt must have seen by Lincoln's
ultimatum that no such motive could
have entered the hero's mind. He was
only following the natural instincts of q
magnanimous soul. We congratulate
the people of South Carolina that they
are assured in advance of similar leni-
ency on his march through that Com
monwealth. mills, factories and gin
houses" will be spared in South
Carolina, as we'll as Georgia, and no
dwelling~houses burnt Except by strag-
glers." There is nothing like the mu-
tual interchange of courtcsies among
gentlemen; and If South Carolina dis
cards the rude manners of the Swamp
Foxes of the Revolution, and looks on
upon grand military promenade with
the decorum Of civilized people, she
will find General Sherman a cruelly-mis
represented man. She need not, in that
event, "apprehend any moro damage by
the enemy than the citizens of Georgia
have already suffered" That is, on tho
march f.; nor is it at all likely, for various
reasons, that any injury need be antici-
pated hereafter.
They must have seen by this time,
from the legislation Of the Yankee Con-
gress, and the reply Of Lincoln to our
Commissioners, that there is nothing the
United States so much desire as Peace.
The terms announced in that reply were
so exceedingly liberal that the world
will stand aghast at the audacious OBJ
stinacy Of the South in not accepting
them at once. When you ask gentle
man for both bis money and his life, it
can never enter your head that he. will
meet you with fat refusal, and thus
Justify you in taking both upon the spot.
1t never entered the imagination of Lin.
coin that the South could hesitate to
close with his generous offer, and thus
compel him to exterminate and con6s-
cate the whole country. Besides, the
well-known characteristics Of the Sons
of the Pilgrims forbid the idea that,
wherthey have succeeded in conquer
ing the country, they should inflict any
"damage upon those whom they spared
in an invading march. The Yankees
have never looked from their barren
rocks, with 9 covetous and greedy eye,
upon the fat and fertile plains of the
South. They have never envied the
comparatively easy and comfortable life
upon Southern plantations. They are
Pilgrims upon the earth An pursuit of q
heavenly Canaan, and do not desire their
attention to be distracted by the things
of time and sense. Not one of Sher-
mans large surveying party cast long
ing glance upon the fertile Georgia fields
through which he passed, nor inwardly
resolved that some time he could come
back and "locate in them diggins.
Let us be just and generous to CHI
valric foe and not embitter our minds by
unworthy ideas of Yankee human ma
ture.
Let South Carolina exercise the car
dinal virtues Of courtesy and hospitality