The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-10-31
eenernl nrtler,s soidlers.

General Buffers Soldiers.
From the Tribune.
'Copperhead conservatism has made several
minor attempts to coddle the soldiers, not to
mention the dead-set and its thrice-lamentable
result under the lelthanded auspices of General
Mcclellan. or course such. rich capital OF
votes was too tempting for speculative politi-
clans; but though the grab was made, nothing
TO speak of came of it, and we venture to pre-
dict that however often renewed, in White
Houses or in pot.houses, nothing special ever
will come of it except special discontinue.
There are excellent and natural reasons for
this. To begin with, our soldiers, as a class,
are the most inte lligent and the best educated
the world has seen from the days of julius
Cesar TO the days of General Grant. Secondly,
they fought for principles and not for pay or
plunder. Thirdly, they met secession face to
face, and marked the dabolcal earnestness
which sulleDly smouldered in it's blood. shot
eyes. Fourthly, they would have been more
than human il they could have utterly banshed
bitter memories Of the Confederate prisons of
starvation unalleviated, disease, wanton cruelty,
and gratuitous insult, They remembered, aud
they did right 10 remember; for although rell-
gion commands us to be forgiving, il does not
command us to be fools, and a long memory is
quite consistent with mercIful heart.
Soldiers, of all others, naturally prefer TO
select their lawmakers from among their old
friends rather than their conquered opponents,
and do not look with parti cularly rapturous
delight upon the prospect of a Congress trans
mogrifed into Confederate and Copperhead
camp. In word, our veterans eyes are as
WIDE open now as they we're when upon picket
dutyj and for the result of their wakefulness the
reader is referred to the election returns, at
once so decisive and eXhiarating. An appeal
TO soldiers as class might be of dangerous i'm
port, but no such appeal is necessary. They
are simply voters who have had particularly
good opportunities of studying treason in its
hercest and touest mood, and they neither ad-
mire the animal, nor the friends of the ANIMAL
no matter by what name those frienls may cali
themselves, or in whatever garb they may be-
Tor the moment, masquerading. .5-, .
: IN case like this, we suppose that General
Butler, an old-fashioned Democrat, may be con-
sidered as good witness. He said at Spring
held, Illinois, last Tuesday, that his division of
5000 troops went into the war "Democratsn
almost TO man, and came out of it, rank and
file, Republicans, their residence In Louisiana
having changed their ideas" and given them
q iresh set OF opinions in all matters relating to
slavery. Nobody can say that these results of
personal observation were not perfectly fair and
iegltlmatei nobody can deny the right of man
to shape his views of public policy by what he
knows from immediate intercourse with ayowed
enemies OF the Governments; and nobody with
sense enough to pull trigger will vote to-day as
II there had not been an earnest and BLOODY bat.
tie yesterday. AS we owe our success In the war
very much to the intelligence of our soldiers, so
we may put our trust in that intelligence when
we would win the victories of peace We have
no occasion to beg for, or to buy (if that were
posslDle) the votes of the veterans Naturally
and instinctively they are with us already. as
we are and have been with them