Ottumwa weekly courier. (Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa) 1872-1899, 1876-09-20
SUPPLEMENT OF
TIE OTTUMWA COURIER
WEDNESDAY MORNING, SEPT. 20, 1876.


WEDNESDAY MoRNrNa, SEPT. 20, 1876.
the REeEL CLAIMS.
If Lee had defeated Meade at Get
tysburg in 1868, and Pemberton
Grant at Vicksburg at the same
time, Washington and all the archives
Of the government would have fallen
into the enemy's hands, and ours
would have been the lost cause, and
the rebel debt would have been the
national debt, and the rebel soldiers
would have been on the pension list.
Slavery would have been national
institution, with Robert Toombs call
ing the roll Of his slaves ut the foot
Of Bunker Hill monument.
These were the stakes they we're
playing for, and with great and de-
cidcd rebel victories at the time men,
tloned, which were then within the
range of military probability. the
democratic party of the North would
have arrayed itself at once in body
on the insnrgent side, which would
have made the accomplishment of
these results far less utopian than the
superficial thinker may be willing
now at this distance to concede.
Then Jefferson Davis would have
become President, Robert e. Leo
commandcr-in-chief of the army,
while such men as Samuel j. Tilden,
Thomas A. Hendricks, and II. d.
Hendershott, leaders of the democrat
ic party North who, all through the
war, apparently contemplating such
a contingency, carefully avoided do
ing any thing which would have rem
dered themselves Ineligible to hold
Office under the reign of the Confed-
eracy in case of its triumph, would
to-day be holding Offices of honor
and profit under the great democratic
pro-slayery confederacy. From the
day that Lee delivered his sword to
Grant the astute democratic leaders
of the Solth, aided materially by their
obsequious tools of the North, have
been quietly and determinedly en-
deavoring to accomplish through po-
litical diplomacy what they lost by
the sword.
We have recently published in the
Counter list of some sixty or sew
enty rebel officers, that they have
elected to the last congress, and, in
fact, the roster of the members of the
House and its officers, looks like a
bodily transfer of Jefferson Davis
military and civil government from
Richmond to Washington, Mr.. Davis
himself, seeming to be about the only
conspicuous figure in the drama OF
blood who is absent from the list.
So far as we have observed, they
have carefully re-nominated all these
untamed rebel officers for Congress.
1t is very safe to estimate the inten-
ton and conduct Of these people by
what we would do under similar cir
cumstances.
Now suppose the South had won
and we had lost, which came very
near happening on several occasions,
and suppose they had been in power
during the past ten years, and our
soldiers had been kicked out without
pensions or other recognition, and
that their Confederate money had
become the national currency and our
greenbacks only valuable as curios-
ties, in a word, imagine that ours in
stead of theirs, had been the lost
cause until, by series of blunders.
and by carelcssness and indifference
they had permitted the North again
Z to come into power and ill both
houses of Congress with scedy, hum
CRY federal soldiers, how long, dear
reader, do you suppose it would be
until our side would clean out the
whole outfit, outlaw their currency,
abolish their slavery, strike all their
grcybacks from the pension rolls, in
stall Grant at the head Of the army,
and in q word establish everything
the loyal soldier fought for2
We have before us a carefully pro-
pared list of the bills introduced in
the last Congress by these scedy rebel
Brigadicrs and their tools from the
North. They number one hundred and
forty, and the amount claimed foy
losses to various and sMndry people, al
ready foot up four hundred and see.
enty-t.co millions, three hundred and
fifteen thousand one hundred and kkirta
three dollars, and this simply for cot
ton, timber, &c, which persons claim
to have lost by the invasion of our
armies. And this is but a beginning Of
such claims that can be and will be
presented and paid In case they come
into power, not to mention the four
thousand millions Of dollars they
claim for slaves, which they held
were legal property, and consequent
ly i1Inu0llxy 11osfrnvaI