The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1873-04-24
The Murder of Canby...The Punishment
Ordered.

The Murder Of Canby...The Punishment
Ordered.
| A more cold-blooded premeditated act of
assassination than the killing of General Candy,
by the Modoc Chief, was never committed
Throughout the whole North cry of rage and
horror has gone up, and with one consent the
Government is urged to take the speediest pos
| sible measures for vengeance and retaliation.
1t cannot, however, be expected that the people
! of the South, especially those of Virginia and
the Carolinas, shall indulge in eulogiums upon
General Candy. Time was when our people
| were kindly disposed toward him; now, how
ever, it would be afectation, if not hypocrisy,
to pretend that We are overcome by any feeling
of great personal sorrow at his death.
It is an exceedingly ungrateful task to speak
of any one, who has just passed from time to
eternity, save in terms of charity and kindness,
and we shall therefore make no comment upon
the manner in which General Canby-bore him
self when in dominion over US. But, while
we cannot Join our Northern brethen in peans
of praise to their dead hero, We can join them,
and do join them, in the strongest abhorrence
of the dastardly act by which he lost his life.
We have never had any admiration, and but
little sympathy, for the Indian race.-a race
with whom stealth was valor, and with whom
to lie to steal to cheat and to assassinate, was
honor Cunning, trickery and treachery are,
indeed, so inseparably part and parcel of
Indian nature, that it seems strange that any
one, who had the knowledge OF the Indian
character that General Canby's frontier expe-
rience must have taught him, should have
trusted himself, unarmed, in the hands OF the
Modoc Chief.
Especially does it seem strange, in view OF
~ tbot off
the United States uniform, and one who had
first seen active service in Florida, lighting
Indians, should put himself in the hands of an
Indian Chief, with no protection save that OF a
flag of truce.
The murder of General Candy does not af-
ford the first instance, in the history of warfare
between Federal troops and Indians, IN which
the sanctity of q flag of truce was violated.
The public will remember, if General Candy
did not remember, the fate of Osceola, the
Seminole Chief. 1t will be remembered that
after having defeated the United States troops
in several engagements during the second SEM
mole war, Osceola, while holding conference
under flag of truce with General Jessup, on
the 23d of October, 1887, near st. Augustine,
in Florida, was treacherously seized, carried 10
Fort Moultrie, in South Carolina, and there
kept in confinement until his death in 1888.
Nor has the conduct of the white man at other
times toward the red man been such as to teach
him that plghted faith was thing to be g. held
inyiolable. President Grant himself, II we
mistake not. bears testimony to the bad faith
borne by the whites to the Indians
Knowing all these things, as General Candy
must have known them, it does, indeed, seem
strange that he should have gone, unarmed,
into the armed presence of man whom
neither honor nor conscience nor law could
bind. But so it was. Like Osceola, he trusted
to the sanctity of a flag of truce, and like him,
he found it availed nothing against treachery.
Doubtless a terrible retribution will be
wreaked upon the Modoc Chief and his follow
ers. Innocent, if any such of the tribe there
be, and guilty old and young, male and female,
will doubtless all be slaughtered. The army,
both officers and men, will demand vengeance.
The people will demand vengeance. These
demands will scarce be made in vain to the
man who now writes himself General OF the
Armies of the United States OF America
William Tecumseh Sherman is no obscure,
unknown man. The people of the South, at
least, know him, and know him we'll. If ever
there lived man utterly devoid of the feelings
of humanity utterly destitute of bowels of
compassion, that man is General Sherman. If
such thing be possible, he is fend incar-
nate. and not human being. There is no
mercy to be expected from him.
We may look, then, ere long, for butchery
and massacre that will bring disgrace upon
the Federal army and upon the American
people. A terrible punishment is due and
ought to be inflicted. We trust, however, it
will not be an indiscriminate massacre.
Just as we finished writing the above words,
the kilograms came to hand with the order
from General Sherman to General Gillem,
directing the utter determination of the whole
Modoc band. There is no longer any doubt as
to the character of the vengeance civilized
men propose to wreak upon barbarians. We
very much fear that humanity will shudder
when the whole truth shall be known. We
feel very sure, however that General 5 sherman ian
order of the Commanding General, approved
by the President of the United States, there
shall be an indiscriminate slaughter of men,
women and children, guilty and innocent alike,
of the Modoc band, the crime of the savage
will pale before that of the Christian.-lV1-
n,ington Journal