Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1868-07-14
Lstt,r from South America.

bpccinl correspondence VI 'ho bhv"eh'i
Rio .JASEIRo. juno II. 1868.
EDIToRs LEDGER: For more than three
years has the Paraguayau army. under
the heroic leadership of President Lopez,
struggled against the overwhelming com
bined forces of the Brazilian empire,
Uursguay and the Argentine Coniedera-
ton. Brigade after brigade, division
after division, has been forwarded to the
seat Of war from oil parts Of this em.
pire and from the two republics; tor
rents Of blood have flowed, millions OF
the public money have been lavishej,
and still no result has been arrived at.
The official bulletins from headquarters
of the COMMANDMENT Chief of the allied
forces report victories, which often turn
into decided defeats of the allied forces
after the real facts are known, or, at best,
into doubtful advantages gained by our
combatants. Look at the results of the
late attacks Of our combined land and
naval forces, of which so much talk had
been made that the war was generally
believed in this city to be virtually over /;
analyze them and compare them with
the strong position which Lopez still
holds with his little army at the Tebicu airy
ford and in Humayta. With their COM
munication open with the capital, and
with the knowledge of the topography OF
the country, the Paraguayans are en-
abled to hold out against a superior
force The Brazilian armies, on the
other hand, however brilliant they may
be when the regiments first leave their
recruiting stations, get decimated very
soon by excessive heat, the fatigues of
long marches, and constant exposure.
By the time they reach the seat of war,
a large proportion of them are entirely
unfit for service, and month after month
| is wasted in waiting for the army being
again in fighting trim; in marches and
counter-marches, and the vain hope of
starving the enemy, when our own men
have difficulty in obtaining their supplies
with anything like regularity.
There is one original and decidedly
novel incident in the history of the war,
which will probably not be properly un-
derstood nor appre ciated abroad. Irefer
to the army of four thousand female COM
batants, actually in the field or acting as
reserves of the Paraguayan army. The
Brazilian and Argentine journals, which
acquaint us with these strange particu-
lars, cry out shame - and declare that
General Lopez is scandalizing the world.
They, of course, take it for granted that
young girls and mothers of families are
pressed into service in Paraguay against
their will. Papers in your country and
ia Europe will condemn this proceeding
still more, because they are impressed
in their minds with the presence of a
frail, delicate form of young woman,
brought up among and surrounded with
the comforts of quiet home. Such,
however, is not the case in reality; it is
an Indian race that General Lopez has
under his orders. The admixture of in
digenuous blood, observable in all Span
ish-American colonies, is particularly
strong in Paraguay, in that inland COM
munity which the Jesuits originally or
ganized and disciplined out of their In
dian converts. The savage fortitude
with which the Parsguayan soldiers re-
fuse quarters when wriihing on the
ground in the last pangs of death, does not
belong to civilized warfare. The whole
of Paraguay has stood the ordeal of its
present unequal struggle with the un-
Anching endurance of a wild Indian at
the stake, and the women have already
shared the hardships and the dangers of
the campaign-digging trenches, lading
and unlading vessels, and doing duty as
couriers and messengers to such an extent
that their coming forward in second line
on the field at the present moment, aud
bearing their own share of the brunt of
battle, may seem scarcely an aggravation
of their lot. However that may be, o
man cannot command such unlimited
sacrifices, both of life and property. from
women as well as from men, as Lopez
has hitherto obtained, if the instinct of
self-immolatioH we're not strong at the
heart of the whole population-if the de.
termination to do or die did not spring
as spontaneously from the heart of the
meanest Paraguayan as from that of the
chief, whom his enemies designate as the
"cruel and cowardly Lopez"
The Emperor of Brazil has rejected the
mediation of the United States, but it is
to be hoped that repeated urging and
amicable interference, not only by that
republic but also by the European pow
ers, will eventually terminate that strug-
gle, from which neither Brazil nor her
allies will ever derive any lasting benefit,
even if Paraguay should be defeated and
Lopez expelled. lAGo.
A clergyman in charge Of the Meth
odist Episcopal Church on the Beaufort