Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1868-10-02
"The Lost Cause"

EIGnr years ago, and nom that date on
ward fer considerable period, there was
not In the world more confident and dc.
faut cause than that of the rebellion. The
attack on the Union was plotted with the
audacity of assumed invincible superiority,
and made with the insolence Of conquest
already achieved. The trickcry, fraud,
theN and violence which prepared the
way for war, betokened in their authors
an assumption Of absolute power to vim.
dicate their course at the bar of right and
on any possible field of conflict. The
men who seized arsenals, forts and ships,
who stole the money and arms and ammu
milton, who purloinod the secrets of the
War Office and raised the flag Of secession,
had at least the courage of unbounded con
ceit, and gaily fattered themselves that
they were the latest and greatest heroes
of the world. Bombastic braggarts In
reality, in too many instances, they yet
lacked nothing of selfconfdence which
properly belongs only to the greatest
genius and the highest character. Beau
regard and Bragg are types of the leaders
who unfurled the Confederate flag, and
baptized its cause in the first blood Of civil
war. Their spirit prevailed in the rebel
ranks during all the early part Of the war,
and ran riot in the rebel press and through
every rebel community.
The appearance of an almost unknown
Union commander at Fort Donelson gave
a severe shock to Confederate confidence.
The thief Floyd and his fellow, Pillow,
skulked away from that fight, and left
Buckner to make an ignonimous surrcn-
der. From that day the rebel cause eN-
perienced course of terrible reverses.
From Pittsburgh Landing to the Wilder
aawen ~ lx.,NN eNn 1Wr Il 10
played the superiority of Northern re-
sources. The most defiant braves Of sc.
cession were sobered, and the proudest
soldiers of the South Inundated, while the
rabble of braggarts was whipped out of
the contest Lee surrendered the most
thoroughly worsted forces ever kept to.
gether in the field, and long before neces.
sity compelled his pride to yield hope had
vanished out of the Confederacy. The
last efforts of Davis and his commanders
were made with the most wicked disre.
gard of inevitable fate, an objectionable
sacrifice of life in the hopeless defence of
lost cause.
At the moment of final defeat, when
Grant and Sherman and Thomas had con
cluded the bloody business of suppressing
armed rebellion, the South was wholly
subdued. The feeling everywhere pre-
vailed that the cause of the Confederacy,
everything for which the war had been
made, was forever lost No task was ever
more effectually accomplished than that
from which Grant and his Generals rested
when Lee laid down the arms of the Con
federacy. The capture of Davis, a fugi-
tive disguised as an old woman, fleeing
the country which he had attempted to
govern and failed to defend, was but type
of the complete humiliation of the South
To escape In any way whatever, the pen
.alties Of the rebellion, was the utmost am.
bition of all classes The men who had
risen like bullies, and made war like
butchers, hoped only to sneak away, or tC
purchase existence on their own soil by
abiect submission. The cause of the
the South, including everything for whicl
it had plotted and fought, was by univer
sal confession " lost cause" A just gov
ernment, from the day of Lees surrender
an administration faithful to the victor
ious nation, would have settled the result
of the contest almost at once, and secures
all the great fruits of the war, consignin
the cause of the rebellion to burial will
out hope of resurrectirn.
But Andrew johnson did not consul
the supreme law of justice in forming hi
policy of reconstruction. He was nc
faithful to the victorious nation. He too
no pains TO secure the fruits of the wal
On the other hand, he was at the creates
pains to devise release for subdued rebels
and to invite them to lift up their heads
He inaugurated policy which could no
but undo, with the rebel population, tn
last and most important work of the wal
And by long course of desperate resis
lance to the national will, he did all tina
disloyal President could dc to inspire II
the friends Of the "lost cause an expec
tation of still effecting some of the leading
objects of the rebellion.
This expectation became irrepressibl
with the success of the Ku-Klux wing G
the Democracy in the Tammany Conver
ton. When Wade Hampton and Vallar
digham had triumphed in the nominatio
of Seymour and Blair, the rebel spir
was itself again, and il it were possibl
for a Ku-Klux Democracy to elect a Pres
dent, and wrest from victorious natio
the control of its affairs, the " lost cause
/ would be the winner after all.
! 1t Is Just this which an Overwhelmin
majority of the country intend to preveI
by making General Grant President.
was when Grant crossed thespath of th
COnfederates that their cause received II
first severe humiliation. >He, above a
| others, reduced 1t to abject submission
: It's final surrender was into his hand
And he has probably done more than an
. other individual to check the policy
. Andrew johnson and maintain the eau
q of the Union against surviving rebellio
It is fit that he should complete the wol
, in which he has already played so large
. part, and 1t is the just intention of u
n nation that he shall do this. II was 9
a irreversible decree which went forth wh6
q our millions poured out their blood al
], treasure, that the rebel cause should di
4 The ban of civilization and the curse
= the American people are on it, and it mu
q and shall remain the lost cause."-W
e cG9o Tribune