The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1867-11-16

restrained but encouraged IN taWiess sfocncs
and outrage to suspected Unlonists' thei'
wives and children. In remote places, upon
the public highways, in the humble siweii.
mos of tie moor and around the family
be5rtT, from which the husband and father
Is had been dragged in chains to the army ansl
nr1son or driven to the mountain caves and
forests scenes were enacted that can never
be described, and, if told, would mot be
creditedas 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 at naught. y Mothers were
taken from helpless infants, and kept TOR
weeks, in outhouses and pens IN the woods,
;. at the mercy and disposal of .depraved and
h brutal men. until, in some Instances thei r
tbreats 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, ana
two soldiers seated themselves upon it, until,
f. screaming with pain she disclosed the place
I of her husbands concealment and consigneda
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, ana
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.n The Polk county murders, the
Laurel massacre" the horrible murder, by
guerrillas, OF Thaddeus Cox, and his wife
and children, in Pasquotank, and the shock
ing atrocities in Buncombc, Haywood. Ashe,
Wilkes and Allegheny, arc but isolated In
stances of what w8s done in almost every
county They can lie truthfully multiplied
Al hu
authorized parties, in uniform and under Of
fcers Add to- all this the want and MOURN
ing that sat in every humble household, and
even then hut an inadequate conception can |
be formed of the terrible condition to which |
we were reduced. r.. H.
RESPONSIVENESS were sent to the State and |
Confederate authorities and 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 act of general amnesty and
pardon in order to screen them from all flu
ture investigation. 1t would have been far
more proper and more conducive to the tu-
ture, peace and welfare of the country, had
the Legislature instituted in each county
commission to take affidavits respecting the
occurrences in it, to I've published in vol
ume and preserved among the public arch
ives, as Il perpetual warning to pnsterity.-. %
Such record would certainly serve as a
guide to failure Legislatures in making just
determinations in such acts of amnesty as
good policy may from time to time require.
The nntimely haste of Legislators to draw
curtain over it all, leaves room for suspicion
that the purpose not only to secure the
guilty from punishment, but more especially
to save the instigators and leaders of the re
bellion from the disgrace to which the truth
might expose them before the tribunal of
mankind.