Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1866-08-31
rHB soED1Ens AND MY PoL1oE.

TIE SOLDIERS Ind MY POLIoE
About score of brevet Generals, most
of whom were chiefly distinguished in the
army for ineficiency and failure, and
whose strategy in Office seeking has like
wise proved abortive, have published a
call for a Soldiers National Union
johnson Convention" at Cleveland, on
Sept. IL. We are sorry to see that
some really brave and gallant men have
lent their countenance to this thing, and
who will thus incur the penalty and the
odium of having abandoned the party un-
der whose banners their laurels were
won. Brave men are always frank, gen
erOus and magnanimous, and hence are
easily beguiled by praetieed politicians
Besides, all the patronage of the Exec
utive is now being used to induce the
heroes of the army to fall down and wor-
ship the mock majesty of accidental and
temporary power. Office and promotion
are held out to them, and it is not strange
if some, in a moment of almost venial
weakness, should snatch at the delusive
bait. Generals Crook and Custar, despite
all their brilliant services, were not
thought of for promotion until they lent
the prestige of their names to make
JOhnsOnism respectable, when the Presi-
dent suddenly remembered that their
names occupied too low a place on the
army records. Accordingly each was
promoted, evidently not on account of his
victories over the enemies of the Repub-
lie, but for unworthily offering to yield
up the fruits of those victories to those
same enemies in the conventieles of the
Johnsonites. Such is a dear price at
which to win military honors, and the
day will surely come when they will rest
with crushing weight upon therecipients
All history teaches that soldier cannot
be untrue to his patriotic antecedenrs-
cannot lend himself as a tool for poll
iticians, without its leading to his ulti-
mate ruin aud disgrace. Examples of
this might be pointed out by the score.
Soldiers will you allow this corrupt par
ty which fain would sell out the country
you saved to Its enemies and betrayers,
to buy you Not twenty moons ago
these same men were denouucing you as
Lincoln's hirelings, - Northern ban
dts, foreign mercenaries They ex-
hausted the English language of epithets
with which to style you as oowardIy, sell
fish. sordid, and degraded. They hated
and spit upon the flag you carried in tri-
umph through so many battles. In the
North they made every possible effort to
resist the draft and prevent supplies and
from being sent to you in
the field When you came home wound
ed and sick, they insulted you by treason
able sympathy for having lost limbs or
health in a cruel and unnatural war
All through the struggle they gave sym
pathy and aid to your enemies, and now
they ask you to unite with them in restor-
ing those same enemies to Congress to
make laws for you. Soldiers, if yOu act
and vote with such party, you are un-
true to your country and yourselves
You will be untrue to the glorious names
which, by untold suffering you inscribed
in words of golden fame on your coun-
try's banner, and by which all coming
win read your record. o,
let no stain mar the splendid names of |
Shiloh, Spottsylvania or Chickamauga.-I /
Let it not be said that after those bril-
liant victories you allowed a few Office
seeking politicians to betray you into the /
hands of the foes you conquered
With one or two exceptions you will I
ind none of your favorite leaders whom
7ou followed to victory after victory ask
ng you to engage in such business. The
lames o. such men as Grant, Sber-
nan Sheridan. Meade, Thomas, Old Joe
Hooker, Logan, Hancock or Rosecrans
re not attached to johnson manifes-
oas. You are asked to go to Cleveland
y Gen. Dix, parlor knight who helped
o save his country by publishing dis
atches in his comfortable quarters at
Fortress Monroe and New York; by
rem. Merideth, an Indiana politician who
eft you at the front to go home and run
Or Office and by Gen. Franklin, who by
is inactivity and disobedienee of orders
aided the rebels in beating our
rmy in the second battle Of Manassas.
uch men ask you to be magnanimous to
he foes whom you, amid storm and sleet.
re and blood, compelled to surrender. 1
hat is, according to the johnson phrase
logy, accept the situation" Soldiers, {
Te propose to be magnanimous almost to !
fault. While every traitor Of them de. I
srVes to be hung higher than Haman I
-e propose to let them come back and I
Djoy all the advantages of our govern a
lent upon terms which in any other I
ountTy would be considered as most un- q
isely lenient We offer terms which. z
7ep ignoring their treason would be /
ldeed, but simple and necessary justice. c