Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1876-08-11

have three times its actual strength.
There was a blaze and shine of glory
on those advancing columns, that I
took to be the lustre and shine of
bayonets in the sun. But l Judge
now, since Hill's speech, that it was
not bayonets they were bearing, but
Constitutions that they were carrying
along and hugging. Vociferous
cheering. l saw them doing a good
deal of this hugging, these Rebels
who were not Rebels, but simply
"Constitutional-huggers." Renewed
cheering. The boys who are here
before me, who were with me at Don
elson, saw some of it there. Laugh
ter, and cries by soldiers, "That's SO"
awe saw them at it in good many
battles."l What patriots they were,
doing so much for "the Constitution
of our common country!"
DEMOCRATIC BITTERNESS.
One thing 1 have now come to,
which is painful to speak about, as it
is largely private matter. So far
from beng allowed to leave the De-
mocracy in peace, as l had hoped and
expected, with no noise about it, you
have seen, many Of you here, what
has been said and charged against
me in the Democratic press. But
what you have seen is nothing. In
the last ten days l have received
scores of letters, the most of them
anonymous, abusing me without stint,
and charging me with all sorts of
crimes. These things, which would
annoy any man who had feeling,
have simply confirmed me in my
estimate of many members of the
party l have left, and have simply in
tensified my conviction that my
course was, and is, right. I can see
by these an explanation of one thing
that puzzled me in the career of my
old comrads-in-arms, Gen. John A.
Logan. Logan and l were together
a great deal in the fore part of the
war, and we talked things over as
acknowledgements, and in every re.
spect nearly we agreed. After the
close of the war we met again. When
l had parted from him he was Dem
ocrat; then he was Republican, and
bitterly anti-Democratic. l said to
him, 81 can understand your course
in changing parties, and l cannot
blame you very much. But what l
cannot understand is, what makes
you SO terribly bitter against the
Democrats" He replied, "You never
will fully understand it till you your
self leave the Democratic party,
which day will surely come, but then
you will see it PLAIN enough. You
will get all sorts of anonymous, vii
lainous, cowardly letters, charging
you with all sorts of crimes, and
heaping upon you all sorts of vile
abuse"
THE REBEL ABUSE OF THE GENERAL.
I know the public charges made
against Logan, and know personally
what atrocious lies many of them
were, and l could not conceive that
partisan malignlty could go any far
ther than it went in the coinage of
them. But now l do see. These
betters l have received charge me
with being a robber, an incendiary,
and murderer! These charges they
make to describe my career and
record asa soldier. Can l be blamed,
then, in view of such abuse as this
for departing from my resolved pur-
pose of privacy, and publicly hurting
back upon their authors all such ac-
cusations? Whenever you find one
OF these men charging me with these
things scratch his skin and you will
find Rebel. Tremendous ap-
plause.
Let me refer to some of these
charges briefly: They say 1 stole
cotton, and made money by it. It's
a lie. Applause. l say it with that
word because that is the word.-
[Great applause. l captured but
two lots of Confederate cotton, as it
was called,-cotton belonging to the
Rebel Government. I turned it over
and took duplicate receipts for it.
one of which sent to the Secretary
of the Treasury, where it now is, and
the other l kept, and now have it. !
never made cent on cotton, and
never tried to do it. l make short
work of these charges, because that
is all there is of it.
They say l speculated in gold while
at the head of my command. 1t is
fact. Laughter. The Wall-street
brokers were running up the price of
gold, speculating on the fast-increas-
ing perils Of the Republic, saying
that Vicksburg could not be taken,
and that therefore the Rebellion
would be victorious. They did not
scruple thus to speculate, even if it
was destroying the credit of the Gov
ernment and helping the Confeder-
ates. Wall-street and the Rebels
were together then,-as they are now
Immense applause and they bet
against us. That was all there was
of it. We knew we could take
Vicksburg, and knew when it would
be taken before Wall-street did. We
knew the Mississippi would go down
so we could land on the Rebel side
1--WE had already landed on the other
side); and knew that, when we did
land on their side, there would be
trouble. So, in April, we organized
together number of our officers, and
formed a club. Laughter. All
drew our pay, and got all the money
we could. l put in this all my
money, and everything that l had,
and borrowed every dollar that l
could.
We all put in this money, our pay
as soldiers, and made purse of it,
and sent man to Wall street to sell
gold short at sellers option OH ninety
days, and put up our money as mar
gins. 1t was simply a bet on our
part that we could take Vicksburg,
and that we would do it, and bet
on Wall-street's part that we couldn't
and wouldn't. We staked our lives,
too, on top of the bet. We did take
Vicksburg. Great cheering, fire.
quently repeated The river went
iown ond wo want in TRnnawed