New-York tribune., 1876-03-01
THE pJTJOJT MILES.

n. 81.
the typical Patriot Soldier. "All my long and
"evcntful life," he says, 81 have stood up
with q stout heart, and manfully combatted
" the trials and tried to meet the duties and
responsibilities of life. Chiefest among these
." have held the duties and responsibilities
"of the Patriot Soldier" But the way of the
Patriot Soldier is hard. If any one doubts it,
let him read tho touching story of the Pillow
mules which the General tells in our columns
this morning.
In Nav, 1861, Gen. Pillow took command of
the Army of Tennessee. The troops were un-
armed and there were no munitions OF war IN
the State. Hence, to use his own ponderous
expression, he was compelled to establish
"cannon founderies, factory 10 manufacture
"and alter guns, and to fabricate sabers."
These folInderies had to he fed with coal The
agents of Pittsburgh firm had large stock
of coal in Memphis. He paid for it, he says,
Al long as he had money at command, and
then apprehending that the supply would
soon be exhausted, he made virtue of
necessity and seized what was left as
the property of public enemies of the State.
Rctributive Justice did not lag far behind.
During the following Summer the Federal
plantations near Helena, Ark, and drove off
his mules to st. LOUIS. There were two
hundred and thiriy-6ve of them. All of them
abe-bodicd and well-trained. Splendid mules!
Even now the Patriot Soldier cannot repress
his enthusiasm for those mules, but in his pc
ttion to Congress "points with pnde' to
their record. "Ihe teams" he says, were
" so fine as TO attract public attention, and
"wcre known in st. Louis and to the officers
/" of the QuartermasteI's Department as the
"Pillow mules"
After the close of the war suits were brought
for the coal which he had seized in Memphis
He pleaded the rights of n belligerent, but the
Courts decided against him and the Legisla-
ture declined to sustain the defense. His Ar
kansas estate, which had once been worth
81, 900, 900, had been forfeited during the
war, and with the judgments in these coal
cases hanging over him he was driven into
bankruptcy. llo is reduced to beggary i'll his
old age. "Gaunt poverty he says, "stares
emo in the face, and the conviction is forced
"upon me that have lived too long" In his
extremity he appeals to Congress to pay him
for his mules
1t is the appeal of the oldest living officer of
the regular army and "the only Major-Gene-
raj who served in the Mexican war who still
"suryivcs.n He admits that the Government
could not undertake to pay for al the prop
erty that was coniscated during the war, but
insists that it can afford to pay for the mules
taken from the cOtton-fields of all the Major
Generals who served it faithfully IN any for
eign war. In word the Government ought
TO pay for Major-G General Pillows two hundred
-. Al.
he adds, could forgive his prodigal son, can
"not Paternal Government in pardoning the
offending soldier restore to him that which
I" is his by natural righti' II the fatted calf
were killed for the prodiga why should not
the Pillow mules he restored to the Patriot
Soldierl "Morc especially when those mules
"have been kept in body and not judicialy
condemned until peace was restored and the
offender was granted full pardOn'
Blind Belisarius, begging pennies by the
roadside after forty years service. is one of
the sublime figures of history. Gibbon, who
had mania for killing traditions has con-
dcmned it as the idle fable of a rhyming
monk, but mankind have clung to the legend
as the most pathetic example of the vcissi-
tudes of fortune and the ineratitude of na-
tions. But somehow Gen. Pillow, reciting
his coal bills and mourning for his mules,
does not remind us of Belisarius
The heroes of our civil war are the common
heritage of u reunited North and South. If
the soldiers heart and soul went with his
sword il matters less whether the uniform was
blue or gray. Lee and Stoncwall Jackson be-
long to the North as well as the South. But
jackas are not lions; and neither North nor
South wastes sympathy upon the unwilling
belligerents.r One of the Six Hundred has
just starved to death in England. "Will o