Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1872-09-14
WHOLE NUMBER 1881.

tell their names, their regiments, or their
/ homes, and who died with the bread too
Iong delayed in their hands, were victims
! TO the one handspring of rebel action
there-"Anythiug to beat Grant"
In substance it was the one cxcusino
| cry for all the minor sins which flourish.
ed under the crime Of treason. ANY.
thing TO destroy the Union; anvtbino
to weaken the Union forces anytbinS
H. cNiirnnatc tnion soldiers or Union
men anything to beat Union Generals
anything to crush the Republican partv,
anything to beat Grant. Each and ali
-igu.iied The same, aud in their names
/ every outrage that disgraced the paqe Of
rsDel warfare was pcrpetrated. From
the brng on Sumter to the final surrcp-
der, either in essence, or in exact Ian.
guagc, The one motto, ci' ed to cover all
forms Of atrJcity, was the watchyord
Of to-daY-"Anything TO beat Grant"
Violate all rules Of civilized war. i'll treat
prisoners, starve them, disable them. If
need he murder them. Anything TO
beat Grant. Plan to burn Northern cit
ties, plan to poison them, plan to infect
them With contagious diseases. Anv-
thing to beat Grant.
When the war closed the crv did not
cease; Booth acted upon its spirit. when.
with lis accompliccs, he murdered the
President, and attempted the lives of the
Cabinet officers. With him it was "Any-
thing to beat the Republican party"
Andrew Johnson followed him. and
tried by political treachery to restore
what the rebels in arms had lost. And
with him the problem of defeating re-
construction was at last a question of
beating Grant
The Seymour campaign, fought out
upon the principles of the Broadhead
letter, was but a call for rebel rally to
beat Grant.
Later the Ku-Klux banner has sportcd
the motto. BY its enforced authority
Northern men have been driven out OF the
South, their property destroyed and their
lives often taken. Union men have lived
IN one long reign of terror. Colored cit
liens have been prosecuted beyond the
limits which the old slave code tolerated
broad as those limits were. By whip
ping, by murders, by burDings, bv ter
rlsms OF all kinds, by every means
which devllsh ingenuity could devise,
this organization has worked Industrious
ly Each masked marauder shouting to
his fellow, "Anything to beat Grant"
1t ia true that the motto, as used
through the war, bad but little personal
reference to Grant, but always to the
cause, or the principles which he and the
ether Union leaders represented. And
Tie old cry which is ringing out again
81 tiercely now, does not apply to Gen.
Grant as person, but to the selected
standard bearer of the Republican party.
In the contest, for many, Gen. Grant
as a person receives only secondary con-
Sideration, but for all Republicans Gen.
Grant as the candidate Of their party,
stands as the representative Of ali that
was gained by the war, and the good
that has come to the country in the
years which have succeeded it.
As in the years OF tue war the loyal
North made answer to the rebel shout
Anything to beat Grant" by pushing
on It's columns in a never ceasing march,
sparing no effort till victory established
peace; so, when the same shour rings
over the land again, there surely will be
q loyal rally To preserve what those
brave columns wrestcd from the old foe
on lis feet again.