The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1867-11-07

from conscription. were there, and at Castle
Thunder in Richmond, incarcerated upon
mere suspicion OF Unionism, and met their
death hy 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
UniOnisiu of North Carolina. The rest Was
left 70 the ne ghbnrhuod scouts and authnri-
zed bands of guerrilla ROBBERS, not only un-
restrained but encouraged in awless violence
and outrage to suspected Unionists, their
wives and children. In remote places, upon
the public highways. in the humble dwell
ingS of the poor and around the family
hearth, from which the husband and father
had been dragged in chains tu the army and
prison, or driven 10 the mountain caves and
forests, scenes were enacted that can never
be described and, if told would not be
credited as possible in 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 depraved and
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 a poor wO
man were put under the rails of il fence, and
two soldiers seated themselves upon 1T. 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
Il
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 Contcd
eracy." The Polk county murders, the
I" Laurel massacre' the horrible murder, by
guerrillas, of Thaddeus Cox, and his wife
and children, in Pasquotank, and the shock
ing atrocities in Buncombe, Haywood. Ashe,
Wilkes and Allegheny, are 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
6cers. Add to all this the want and mourn
ing that sat in every humble household, and
even then but an inadequate conception can
i've formed of the terrible condition to which
we were reduced.
"Reminiscences were sent to the State and
!
of many of these facts ought to he, and prob |
ably, are or file in the Executive office at
Raleigh We have not heard that any OF
the perpetrators have been brought to trial |
"r 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 a |
commission to take atfitlavits respecting the |
occurrences in it, to he published in Il vol |
ume and preserved among the public arch
ives, as perpetual warning to pnsterity-
Such record would certainly serve as a
guide to future Legislatures in making just |
in such acts of amnesty as
good policy may from time to time require.
The untinely haste of legislators to draw a
curtain over it all, leaves room for suspicion
that the purpose was not only to secure the
guilty from punishment, but more especially
~ save the instigators and leaders of the re
bellnn from the disgrace to which the truth
might expose them before the tribunal of
mankind.