The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1867-11-12

from conscription, were there, and at Castle
Thunder in Richmond, incarcerated upon
mere suspicion of Unionisn, and met their
death by starvation and other indescribable
cruelties.
But the failing resources of the Confeder
acy would not allow the expense of sufficient
prison accommodation for as many victims
as was necessary to suppress the struggling
Unionism of North Carolina. The rest was
left to the ne ghbnrhood scouts and authori-
zed bands of guerrilla ROBBERS, not only un-
restrained but encouraged in lawless violence
and outrage to suspected Unionists, their
wives and children. In remote places, upon
the public highways. in the humble dwell
lngs of the poor and around the family
hearth, from which the husband and father
had been dragged in chains to the army and
prison, or driven TO the mountain caves and
forests, scenes were enacted that can never
be described, and, if told, would not be
credited as possible in a Christian age. For
the crime OF not betraying husbands and
sons to death, the virtues and claims OF wo-
manhood were set al naught. Mothers were
taken from helpless infants, and kept for
weeks, in outhouses and pens In the woods.
at the mercy and disposal of dcpraved anG
brutal men, until, in some instances, their
breats burst with the accumulation of milk
which the merciful God of nature had pro-
vided for their starving infants at home. In
Randolph county the thumbs of poor wo-
man were put under the rails of fence, and
two soldiers seated themselves upon it, until,
screaming with pain she disclosed the place
of her husbands concealment and consigned
| him to death. And this was done in pres
ences of her two little children. This state
ment of particular instances is made upon
the authority OF public representations in
the newspapers, at the time and since, and
upon the authority of private gentlemen In
whose locality they occurred. And there has
been no contradiction or eXtcnuation, except
that the victims were untrue to the COnted-
eracv" The Polk county murders, the
Laurel massacre" the horrible murder, by
guerrilIas, of Thaddeus Cox, and his wife
! and children, in Pasquotank, and the shock
ing atrocities in Buncombe, Haywood. Ashe
Wilkes and Allegheny, arc but isolated in
stances of what was done in almost every
county. They can he truthfully multiplied
by hundreds. Thes things were done by
authorized parties, in uniform and under of
tcers. Add to all this the want and mourn
ing that sat in every humble household, and
even then but an inadequate conception can
be formed of the terrible condition to which
we were reduced.
Remonstrances were sent to the State and
confederate autnOrltlcS. anu representations
of many of these facts ought to he, and prob
ably are on file in the Executive office at
Raleigh. We have not heard that any of
the perpetrators have been brought to trial
or punishment. But on the contrary. the
present Legislature of the State has been
swift to pass an act of general amnesty and
pardon in order to screen them from all fu
ture investigation. 1t would have been far
more proper and more conducive to the flu
ture peace and welfare of the country, had
the Legislature instituted in each county
commission to take affidavits respecting the
occurrences in it, to he published in a vol
ume and preserved among the public arch
ives, as il perpetual warning to posterity.-
Such a record would certainly serve as a
guide to future Legislatures in making just
determinations in such acts of amnesty as
good policy may from time to time require.
The untimely haste of Legislators to draw
curtain over it all, leaves room for suspicion
that the purpose was not only to secure the
guilty from punishment, but more especially
TO save the instigators and leaders of the re
belliun from the disgrace to which the truth
might expose them before the tri bunal of
mankind