Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1867-08-16
Southern TnfonIsts.
A correspondent of the New York Ci

A correspondent of the New York Citizen,
a paper published by General Halpine,
miles O'Reily) in the City of New York, is
publishing series of articles styled Rum
maging Through Rebeldom." From the
last issue of that paper we extract the fol-
lowing, giving the writer's opinion of that
class of persons in the South who now
claim to be the especial friends of the
Union. Whoever may be the writer, his
travels have not been Improbable, and he
is not by any means the dullest of OBJ
servers. He says:
When I hear of Northern people talk
ing about loyal Unionists, abominate the
color of my skin, and would any day rather
shake hands with an honest niger who
was earnest land seven-eighths of them
were) in the fight against the North, and
who was afterwards deluded into the notion
that the North held his truest friends [
would much sooner shake his hand than
that of Parson Brownlow, of Tennessee, or
John Minor Bolts, of Virginia, to say moth
ing of the c01aditle who have crept into favor
or power on the shoulders of supposed
Unionism. That there were many honest
and true Unlonists IN every State of the
South [ know full we'll but, also know
that the men who came forward to repre-
sent them were, in almost every instance,
creatures of circumstance Or the merest pol
troons, who fed from one cause to the
other because they did not get pap enough
at one side and needed protection at the
other. Such was Holden, of North Caro-
lima. Men like Bolts and Brownlow are
not in that category; for they never sought, |
as the others did, to obtain some sort of
Office in the Confederacy, and failing in !
that to rebel against it. The destruction of
the Confederate archives is a vast loss to |
the country. Had [ access to them now,
[ could show you that the most Jealous |
Unionists, upheld since the war, were more
Jealous Confedcrates at the outset of the
war, and waxed timber as their pretensions
were not recognized. Here let me paren-
observe that the true test of
manly honesty was real loyalty to either
side. To your so-called Unionists this test
cannot be successfully applied in one out
of hundred cases.
'' Take it thus from extreme points -
Office aspirants like Jack Hamilton, of the
Lone Star State, and Holden, of the North
Star State, and you have them all included
within the qualities of these two minor
stars. Who, once on time, were greater
secessionists than they were? None Why
did they cease to be zeaots, or seeming
zealots, at the Dixie side Because it did
not "pay )" because their personal chances
to be far better at any other side;
because their own section condemned them
Hamilton could not get a corporal's
guard " to uphold him in Texas Holden
could not get half guard Except to con-
sign him to guard house, to aid OF abet
him in North Carolina. Wherefore? The
people were weary beyond expression of
such any-side and every-side men. Three
fourths-I give that as the least-of the So
called Union men, who became more or
less conspicuous toward the end of the war
had been active secessiOnists, and only
abandoned Secessia after finding that they
had SLIM chances of bettering' their in
dividual condition. When the Secretary
Of State decided to send very fimsy man,
though a leading politician, on a diplo- ]
matte errand, that man usually became
Unionist. From the instant OF refusal to I
better his position he became a foe of the
GO lost cause" So it was when the head of
any other department declined acquiescine {
in the appeals of * original secessionists
10 have their claims for the crumbs of office
duly recognized.
"Thus it happened that while the Union
IOnlSt ranks got their foremost recruits
mainly, from the disappointed propaganda
sts Of disunion, the Confederacy won its
BEST upholders from the class of men who
as long as practicable, the s,la-
'lons OF the separatisls. Such men as Hen
1ingsen, however, were not mere place
seekers. They were, as they comprehend
I'd the idea, patriots. No insolence of the
hrone, or intrigue of the power behind the
hrone, could make them swerve from the
cause. When Wigfall, Toombs, Cobb, ,
Pryor, Floyd and the like--yea, even Foote, !
IS IenneSSee-became enemies of the
hrone, they did not cease to be friends of /
he cause. 1t was only the individually
mean men who deserted one and the other; I
# such an equiyocal amaleam was that
lass known as Unionists Of course I ad-
nit exceptions. The quality of these ex-
options has been already defined in these Y
ketches." .
Public Speaking.