The Portland daily press., 1879-07-05
Bangor Whig
DESPICABLE CAMPAIGN ISLANDER.
Attempting to Blacken a Soldiers Rec
ord.

Eben It. Pillsbury, in the vile sheet that has
traduced every loyal soldier or citizen from
Abraham Lincoln's time to the present, has
started his campaign in his usual nasty man
ner, by lying and abusive attack upon the
record of the Republican candidate for Gov
ernor as a Union soldier. The malice and
copperhead virulence of Pillsbury are stamped
all over the SANDER that he prints and it will
recoil as his boomerangs have done before
upon his own contemplate head.
Daniel f. Davis, the Republican candidate
for Governor, was but 20 years of age when he
left an academy to enlist as a private soldier
under the National Flag. He has made no
claim to military distinction, and even the
enthusiasm of his friends in the Republican
Convention went no farther than to invest him
with the rank of cavalry corporal and the
credit due to loyal and faithful soldier. If
Eben Pillsbury thinks that the humble rank
of a youthful soldier is cause of reproach, he
will be likely to get an answer to his insult
from the tens of thousands of Maine patriots
who stood in line of battle with their musketS
for their only insignia of rank.
But Plllsbury resorts to explicit and abusive
SANDER in expressing his rage because the
soldier from the ranks for its standard-bearer
in the State campaign. We shall cite a few of
the most outrageous falsehoods for the purpose
OF stamping them into the ground. Pillsbury
asserts that from the date of his enlistment
until his final discharge Mr.. Davis performed
! no service except for few months in the city
of Washington. The statement is an unmiti-
gated lie!
Pillsbury asserts that Mr.. Davis received
bountieS aggregating one thousand dollars.
The statement is an unmitgated lie!
Pillsbury asserts that Immediately upon re-
ceiving orders into active service Mr.. Davis
made pretext of illness with a cowardly de-
sire to avoid fighting. The statement is an
unmitigated lie!
Pillsbury asserts that she Mr. Davis1 was
never in any engagement at ALL" The state
ment is atrociously false!
The sole preteXt upon which this monstrouS
series of falsehoods is strung, is the fact that
Mr.. Davis, after participating in some of the
most arduous service of the war in cavalry
raids under Kautz that have become historic
and that furnished more fighting than Eben
| Pillsbury would stomach, had the misfortune,
like thousands of other good men and true, to
| contract chronic disease from which he suffered
| for years after the war.
| Eben Plllsbury proposes to put stigma and
| reproach upon every soldier who was stricken
! down in the field by an enemy more feared by
| our army than rebel soldiers and the conductor
| of the Maine Standard would brand the name
of coward even upon the head-stones over the
| remains OF those who came home from Libby
and Andersonville to die a lingering death
! from disease
Eben Pillsbury has again made fatal blum
der in his malice
Daniel f. Davis was brave, honorable,
! faithful soldier. There is no strain of reproach
upon his record He faced and fought the
enemies OF his country on horseback and on
foot in bloody contests that are now part Of
history, and in which he helped to bear the
bodies of his dead comrades from the battle
! field If it was dishonor to fight with the
| First District of Columbia Cavalry day after
day in Virginia, at Reams' Station, in the as
Sault on Petersburg and elsewhere, then Pills
bury can attack Mr.. Davis record. His com.
| rades throughout the State, however, will not
be likely to accept Pillsburys opinions in the
| matter.
Mr.. Davis is not man who would obtrude
his military service. He has never boosted OF
it, or thought that he was entitled to special
credit for doing his duty. But when he is thus
wantonly assailed by Copperhead SANDER his
lions and perils of the march and field, will moi
remain silent. Mr. Eben Pillsbury will rue
the day when he assaled the honor of a caval
ry corporal, before this campaign is over.
Mr.. Davis received $55 State bounty and $500
local bounty, nothing more, when he left his
home, poor boy in his twentieth year. Does
Eben PillSbury propose to insult every patriotic
soldier of Maine who accepted similar offered
aid for the benefit OF fathers, wives or children
left behind? In doing it he takes a big con
tract, as the soldiers of Maine will teach him
Our inadvertent error in an article writer
in the hurry of the night after great Conven
ton, in stating that Mr. Davis remained with
his regiment until mustered out, furnishes nc
excuse for the bold ISLANDERS of the STANDARD
and its infantile echo, the Commercial That
he was compelled by sickness to spend the lat
ter portion of his enlistment in hospital with
disease contracted by exposure and overwork
amid the swamps and forests of Virginia
would never be thought of as a discredit by
anyone but Pillsbury.
We ought to thank Pillsbury for this veno
nous assault. 1t reminds the soldiers of Maine
of that undying hatred with which he followed
them during the war, and which pursues them
with undiminished malice fourteen years after
their victory at Appomattox. The soldiers
will answer Eben Pillsbury loud enough fol
| him to hear.