Des Arc citizen., 1866-02-28
WAR.

chacl and his angels fought against the Dragon" In the history of our race, the first war we find on record is that of Cain against Abel. From that time till now our race has been cursed with war and our Planet stained with human blood The fairest parts of earth, and the most clvll- ized portions of our race in every age have felt the scourge of this unsuitable monster, until mother earth herself seems to be one grand charnel house--a universal naoSsote- um. It seems that men act upon the ad- ooe, that, tone murder makes villain, millions a hero" "Frequent commission of crime hardens mon in it." "There shall be wars and rumors of war, but the end IS not vet" But there is time coming up in the future in which it will be said "6eI- l4m ftit' for there shall be no more war . It is then that the earth shall keep jubi lee n thousand years-when the leopard and the calf shall lie down together and the little child laughing leap from its mothers arms and with impunity strokes the hiss ine adder. But most of us are slow to be- Geye that the millenium is even near, tor our ken is clipped by dark horizon, that closes the future with it's coming events Hi impenetrable gloom. Yet, even over the dark abyss of the future, Hope-eldest daughter of heaven throws gleam of light like the bow of heaven the bow of prom ise.
 But is war curse, sore aff1lctlon! Go ask the pale emaciated widow, whose checks are furrowed with burning tears for him who was her support and comfort, whose bones now bleach on some distant field, whose tender ones in hunger weep for bread, while the rude winds of heaven sport with their rags and tattered garments. Is war a curse? Go ask the widowed moth CT who weeps in anguish of soul for an only son around whom all her hopes in declining years clustered, the idol of her heart, among strangers on some distant hill or vale. That noble boy sleeps the sleep that knows no waking, unshrouded, unhonored and unsung. Is war curse? Go ask those noble veterans who for four years stood by their colors and their cause amid the din of battle, in the sulphurous blaze of musketry, the roar of artillery, amid the carnage and groans of comrades and kin, robbed of their limbs, mains and cripples, they stand as living mcmentoes, fragments of what they once were. Proud and chlv- alrous even upon crutches and artificial aids, yet the curse of war has left its i'm press upon their noble forms. Is war a curse? Let the ashes of our once beau tifnl churches, colleges and schoolhouses answer. The smouldering ruins of our cities, towns, hamlets and farms, answer it is. The forcble pressing and taking away of mules, horses, wagons cattle, hogs, all domestic animals, together with all valua- bles of every kind respond, it is. The rude attack and forcible entry into the sanctum sanctorum of every citizens cas- tie at the hour of midnight, where gray hairs, nor beautiful females, nor sleeping innocence had the power to rob the rufhian soldier of his dendish purpose. These all with a trumpet tongue proclaim, war is q curse Is war curse?~ Compare the South to-day with what she was five years ago, recur in memory to the extended cot ton fields, the broad acres of sugar cane and white fields of rice, grain and green seas of cereals and tobacco-happy land happy people! but doomed to fade under the poisonous breath and infectious touch of Mars. From the Chesapeake to the Rio Grande the footprints of the invader have been the seal of her overthrow, over powered by physical force, numerica strength a combination of the North witl every shade, color and element of botl hemispheres. For four years the Soutl withstood all this heterogenious mass, thi agglomeration of every shade and cast Like Leonidas at the straits of Thermop ole, she rolled back the mighty Icolumn
 till exhausted and overpowered she yieldet to superior numbers, but not to valor, anC yielded a land all baptised in the purest and noblest blood that ever coursed in nor.
 tai veins. But the South is still in sack
 cloth and ashes and tears for her noble
 dead. The blood of her purest best anG
 hrovest sn;It in tho eaorad cauSa oe bu,nar