Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1867-12-20

no candid man VIII incur to say that
such men as Yallandigham, Thurman
and Ben Wood did not during the late
( war adhere to the enemies Of the Uni
/ ted States and give them aid and eom-
fort. Such men were popularity con 4
/ sidered by the Southern rebels as their
adherents and were repeatedly and
tauntingly proclaimed as such. They
furnished the insurgents, If not materi-
I al aid, at least that moral aid which
comes from sympathy, and which is Of
ten by far the most valuable. They
comf0rted the heart Of every Rebel in
the South by their disloyaI platforms,
/ speeches and actions.
But this is by no means all. They &C
tually weakened the physical forces Of
the Government and to that extent di-
rectly reinforced the armies Of the enc
my. A very able paper in Putnam's
Monthly for January entitled Thirteen
Years Of the Nation says:
saThe opposition atthe North attempt
ed but failed to oppose the draft. IWen-
/ ty-fiYe thousand troops around New
York, and an equal number IN Ohio and
Indiana were required to thWarE the
/ opposition represented by Ben Wood
and Chauncey BUR-, Nalland1gham ana
! Pendleton."
Here were JlftV tb0Wsand troops sub
tracted from our armies at the front and
sent to the rear to put down opposition
to the Union created in the North by
| VallRndigham & Co! And remember,
too, that our army was thus weakened
at the very crisis Of the struggle, and
that even while the noble Army Of the
Potomac was struggling with thinned
ranks to repel Lees invasion Of Penn
sylvania and save the Capital, draft IL
ots TeFS being melted by the influence
of these men which it required heavy
diversion of eur veteran forces at the
front to put down. Can anything ex-
ceed the infamy of such treason?
/ Does aay one doubt that if these 5O,-
GOO soldiers kept back by the rebellion
Of YaIlandigham & Co. had not been
thus detained that the fate of the rebel
lion would have been more easily and
swiftly determined And can any one
doubt who remembers the dreadful
struggles at Stone River, Chickamauga,
and Gettysburg, whether these $4,000
! soldiers were needed at the front ?
There were critical moments in the
fight at Gettysburg when it seemed
that the reinforcement of a single bri-
gade might have turned the tide of bat
tie either way. And if it had been
turned against US who doubts that the
Northern rebels who kept $4,000 men
from the 'front.', yvoulJ have been re-
sponsible for all the ruin that would
have folIoWed2
But Vallandigham 4 Co. kept back
far more than $1,000. They were infiu-
entail leaders who by their violent Op-
position to the war created a sentiment
5 against it which vastly discouraged en-
Z Iistments and reduced the reinforce.
ments we might otherwise have receiv-
3 ed. The opposition thus created here in
the North was fully equivalent to q
force of three hundred thousand men Ia
the ranks Of the enemy. Every soldier Of
$ any experience and observation knows
this. And every man, soldier, or citi-
J. zen, knows that a military commander
cannot more efectuaIly increase his
: own strength than by creating a divis
j ion or a diversion of the forces of his
= antagonist. But VaIlandigham, Pen
9 dleton and Thurman did both. They
not only created dissention among tht
people who should have unanimously
upheld the arms of the Government, bu
e they actually created diversion of on.
Z forces in favor Of the enemyl
Now was not this giving aid to tht
= enemies Of the United States? Was i
not giving them comfort? And do no
these things constitute treasong
u It is scarcely worth while TO point on
how different would have been the cas-
had these prominent Democrats hav'
> given, as Douglas advised them, the as
sistanee- ef-their sympathy and en-
couragemeut to the prosecution of tn
:, war. The crime these Northern rebels
y have committed cannot be forgotten
I The nation cannot forget that when it
life and death were in the balance tn
= weight of all their influence was on thi
side Of It's ruin. Their arms are red t,
the elbows with the blood of patriots
slain in hundred unequal and fruit
less contests with the rebellion whicl
they. encouraged and reinforced. AND
shall we now, forsooth, forget all thesl
things, and honor the men who hav,
committed these crimes2 Shall we dt
!, it before the melting SHOWS of threl
: winters have smoothed the furrowl
: pIOwed beam deep in epatriotic hear
! Of this people by the dreadful suffering
: and bereayements Of the war?
We cherish no vengeance, but treason
is treason, and all the rains the swee
: heavens can shed cannot wash out itl
damning stain.