The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1867-01-16

property for sale.
The Horrors of the Rebellion-The
Crimes of its Instigators and Leaders.
Our esteemed cotemporary of the Hender-
sonville Pioneer publishes letter from Mr..
Cash. the Senator from the Buncombe Dis
trict. and submits some comments thereon,
from which we make the following extract
Mr.. Cash, it seems, is pleased with the am
nesty act passed by the present disloyal Leg
islature of this State, under which secession
lists have been pardoned for murder and
other high crimes, without the concurrence
or approval of the national authority.
The Pioneer says:
ave cannot for our life see why Mr.. Cash
will complain of the morals of the country
when he supports State nleasurers, to relieve
from punishment the most vile and guilty
murderers that have ever disgraced the face of
Gods earth. We are not blood-thirsty, nor
have we any thing to say against soldiers of
either army, when in the discharge of a SOL
diers duty, but after the civil authorities
having prosecuted, secured fees, andpunished
all. or most of those who were guilty ofminor
offences for the Legislature to attempt to
screen those who have deliberately in cold
blood, shot and hung boys, old men, and in
every conceivable way tortured females, and
turn them loose in the community, to go
Scott free, is measure past comprehension
For the highest tribunal in the State, by
public action to turn loose the perpetrators
of the Polk County massacre, the murderers
of Weaver, Hampton and others; those who
wantonly took the lives of Henderson, Ship
man, Allen, the Thompsons, Jones, Stepp,
Murray, Pehuff, Whitaker, the Sentells, Gil
bert. and the wholesale outrage on Laurel,
in Madison County, besides innumerable
other cases of like nature throughout the
western portion ofthe State, is going step
further than we can approve. Many of the
most guilty perpetrators of these outrages
have never been brought to account. whilsy
Others, for lesser offences, have been madeyfo
suffer the extreme penalty ofthelaw. Noy'we
wish it to be distinctly understood, that we
do not favor the punishment of any soldier,
or officer who acted according to the rules of
civilized warfare in either army. Far be it from
us to desire the punishment of those who were
forced to participate in these outrages, though
they should have acted with moral courage.
But men who assumed authority to take the
lives of others, when prisoners in their hands,
without the shadow of trial, and without
warning, or moment to prepare for eterni-
ty for no other reason than a difference of
opinion, are murderers at heart, and should
in Justice to the community, and to the
friends of the murdered, be brought to ac-
count.
But fortunately for the country there is a
higher power than rebel Legislature, and
that power is seeking to do justice to its
friends as well as its enemies"
The above is well said. The history of
the civilized world contains no examples of
crime which surpass in cruelty and atrocity
the treatment which the Union men of this
State received during the rebellion, at the
hands of the instigators and leaders of that
rebellion. The Polk County massacre re-
ferred to by the Pioneer, furnishes but one in
stance of hundreds that occurred in our
Western Counties. This massacre occurred
in December, 1864, soon after the speech
made by Gov. Vance in the Hall of the
House of Commons, in which he said the
time had come when the civil law was too
slow to punish treason, and when traitors
should be exterminated as fast as they were
caught The treatment of the Union men
was cruel before this, but the secession men,
bers of the Legislature at once wrote home,
informing the peoplewhat the Governor had
sajd-his organs in this City published the
proceedings of the meeting which he adj
dressed, with the view of stimulating the
slaughter of the Unionists, and the result
was that the fires of hatred, cruelty and re-
venge towards the Unionists began to burn
with augmented fury. Gov. Vance had pre-
viously issued orders to his Home Guards,
under which many Union men were shot in
the woods, and old men, and women and
children were arrested and held in conine-
ment in jails, barns, and other outhouses, to
make them tell where those Union men were,
who were opposed to fighting against the
these orders, the thumbs of poor woman
were placed under fence, in the presence of
two of her innocent little children, and two
men sat upon the fence until she screamed
out, and gave such information as led to the
discovery and death of her husband, who
was Union man. They found him and
killed him. This occurred in the County of
Randolph. But the Polk massacre, under
the auspices and by direction of the insti-
gators and leaders of the rebellion, was as
horrible and as cowardly as that above re-
terred to in Randolph, with this exception,
that no monan was tortured or murdered in
the former County. -
In Polk, Messrs. F. A. Weaver, B. F. Hamp-
ton, Samuel Hunter, and John Shehan were
shot without the semblance of a trial of any
kind. They were charged with having rob-
bed DR.. Mills. There was no proof that they
had done SO, and no proof was offered. for
there was no trial They were marched
about three-fourths of mile from the Court
House and shot. Mr.. Weaver was marched
out in handouts. Mr.. Hampton was tied
with rope. Mr.. Hunter was too feeble to
walk, as one of his arms had been shattered
a few days before, and he was carried out on
horseback, with his hands crossed and tied.
They were all Union men, and they were
murdered on that account. as