Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1882-01-20

tFrom the Burlington Free Press 10th nst.l
when the broke out we were oil douehfaces till
Butler cried contrabaud" aud then our Yankee pod
der blood made us welcome the new war-cry. We
were few OF in favor Of negro soldiers until Gov.
Andrew proved the blackbirds could fight, and then
we welcomed them as substitutes for our fathers
brothers. unoles, nephews and cOusins-Rutland Her
dM.
The Herald may speak for ITSELF but we re.
spcctfully decline to have it speak for us in
its confessions; and we think the great mass
of New England Republicans will also decline
to share the Herald's plea Of guilty of dough-
facism aud mercenary motives in the war.
Certainly the doughfaces were very small
minority Of the people of Vermont and the
mum bers were very few who could learn any
thing concerning the love of liberty or the
ways for its practical complication from
Gen. Butler. The First Vermont and tho
Massachusetts, regiments were sheltering run
away slaves before Gen. Butler invented the
term ''contraband." Gen. Hunter and Gen.
John W. Phelps, at the same time and UNI
known to each other, began organizing negro
regiments, one of them at Hilton Head and
and the other at Ship Island, five or six months
before Gov Andrew, all honor to his memory,
enlisted q colored soldier Gen. Phelps, on
the Both of July, 1862 issued the first requi-
sition Tor arms and clothing for colored troops,
and il was not done by the order or advice of
Gen. Butler. On the contrary, Gen. Butler
called him sharply TO account, declined to per-
nit him to arm his colored recruits, and or
dered him not to employ them as soldiers, but
as laborers on the breastworks and abattis.
Whereupon Phelps informed Gen. Butler that
he had not come thther to be the ''more
slave. driver" he proposed to make him, and
resigned his commission. Gen. Butler came
to the use of colored troops in duo time; but
he followed the lead of a Vermonter, and not
the Vermonters him. The employment of the
loyal blacks as troops had hearty approval in
Vermont and throughout New England in the
papers, in public resolutions and in all modes
of expression, before anybody "proved" that
colored regiments could fight and it was not
"peddler blood" which animated our people
in that or any other attitude they took. We
have looked more than once to see if the Her
aid could possibly mean what it seemed to say
so squarely in this matter and we can only
confess to extreme surprise at finding an in
telligent Northern Republican taking up, af-
ter the Southerners have for the most part
dropped it, the old Southern opprobrium that
New Englanders are only race of peddlers,
with no soul above dollar. If there is one
truth more palpable than another in American
history, it is that the anti-savery spirit of New
England, and of the North, was as disinter-
ested as it was earnest; and VIC should expect
the ghosts of the brave boys who left good
homes and good trades to enlist at twenty dol
lars per month, and gave their lives as well as
fortunes to the cause of human freedom, to
haunt us if we allowed the charge that it was
mercenary Yankee peddler blood" they split
SO freely for the flag, to pass without a word
of protest. 1t is SANDER of the dead and
the living.