The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1883-12-06
A QUEER GOSPEL,
But the Sort too often Preached in the South
Twenty Years Ago.


Twenty Years Ago.
To the Editor NATIONAL TRIBUNE:
On the 1eth of February, 1865. while camped
at Eastport Miss, detachment of the I'd
Iowa and 9th Illinois cavalry, in command of
Major Schmitzer, were ordered to proceed to
Tuscumbia, Ala, and learn what he could of
the whereabouts of the rebel General Roddy,
who was supposed to be making his headquar-
tiers at Russellyille. At that time the country
between Tuscumbia and Russelville was full of
rebel deserters who. feeling their cause hope
| less, were hiding in the woods, on the lookout
for our forces, that they might have the oppor-
| tunity of surrendering themselves. It was on
| this occasion that Thos. Bearsner, a member of
| the I'd Iowa, while making flank movement,
secured few rebel prisoners-among them a
Methodist minister by the name of Ferdinand
| S. Petway, who was stationed on the Tuscum-
| bia circuit at the time. On his person was
/ found journal, from which / was permitted
| to clip the following extracts as examples of
| the Gospel of Christ as heralded at that time
/ by the clergy of Dixie. On the 10th of
January, 1854, the Rev. Petway wrote as
| follows: !" Shall We in view of the immense
odds against us, yield the struggle and be-
come the subjects, aye, the fawning slaves,
OF a detestabe tyrant in comparison with
whom the devil himself is almost saint
Shall we give up thenl Yes; provided we
are ready to be the slaves of petty despot; to
be held aud treated as conquered provinces to
be denied the right of representation in Con-
gress halls; TO have insolent abolition officers
/ to rule and insult US In military and civil de-
partments; to give up houses, slaves, lands,
| cattle, and wander homeless to the ends of the
| earth TO shoulder a Yankee debt of FIVE thou
| sand millions; to pay taxes without the means
of paying them to make bricks, as theancent
/ Israeiites did, without straw to see our wives
and daughters goto the kitchen, the wash tub,
the pillow handle, and the dirty drudgery; to
/ see cur mothers serving and waiting maids to
the wives of Yankee generals; to see our sons
and relatives drafted into Yankee armies, and
compelled to shed their blood in enforcing the
Monroe doctrine against the French in Mexi-
co; TO see social and political equality enforced
! between the whites and blacks-oh worse than
this, social amalgamation at the point of the
bayonet; TO see our virtuous, accomplished
Southern ladies insulted by degraded, abomina-
bic foreign hirelings and the detested Yankee,
and insulted by filthy, brutal, thick-Iipped ne
groes, who viii force upon them his polluted
toHch, more repnlsive TO refined woman than
would be the touch of the adder or the shiny
coil of boa-constrictor; to have every news
paper in the land edited by ayillainous Yankee
every pulpit and every school filled by aboli-
ton fanatics; to adopt an anti-saVery Bible
and an anti-slavery God = to welcome free-love
as a new dispensation to see all traces of
Southern ancestry and heritage abolished, all
1
destroyed to see the graves of our fathers and
mothers desecrated by the footsteps of hire
lings and cut-throats; TO forget that ladies and
gentlemen exist; TO forget the pride of aAgood
name and an unsullied reputation, and to wor-
ship an aristocracy of wealth acquired by VIII
lainy and force OF arms-in word, to en-
counter tbs nameless horrors of Yankee SUBJ
jugation.
READY FOR ExTERMINATTog.
IL
say, give up, and the sooner it is done
the better, for the burden may thereby be
iightened by a speedy submission. But if we
are unwilling to drink Of the bitter cup to its
very dregs, then, say, fight on--fght against
hope, fight to the last expiring gasp. Far better
that we should DO exterminated and our names
blotted from the remembrance of all but the
good and yirtuous, than to live in chains and
slavery. Let the poor thieves in their fend-
ish e1uitations, luxuriate on their ill-gotten
gains; let them sheer at the valor of yirtuous
people, principle to which they are utter
strangers: let them, in their savage indiffer
ence, turn deaf ear TO the cries of injured
innocence let them laugh to scorn, as towards
and villains are wont to do, the wan cheeks,
haggard yisage, and tattered garments of or
phanage and widowhood let them offer their
tribute of curses to bravo humanity sacri-
iced in the cause Of freedom and justice !;
let them kiss the feet of Her Majesty the
august upstart queen whose gracious smile
is their tombstone, and before whose glance
they cover and quail; let them hug to their
bosom the filthy, thiek-lipped descendants of
Ham, and luxuriate amid the fragrant aroma
from his charcoal carcass-ft emblems of their
social and moral stencil that pervades all Yam
keedom; let the boosted intelligence of their
beautiful, refined daInsels, in their gracious
sympathy with poor Sanbo, assimilate itself
with the principle OF social anialgamation and
Law IL
his cable bosom; let them draw the sweet nee
tar from his precious lips, and whirl in his
lascivious embrace amid the charms of the
giddy waltz; let them court the polished society
of negro wenches as boon companions and SIS
ters in marriage. as beautiful household pets and
prattling. kinky heads parlor ornaments-let
them do all this under the gracious pretext of
| sympathF with the negro. Ii is at last but tins
development Of Northern corruption among
male and female; the natural outbearings of
principles congenial with their nature; and,
as the old trite adage goes, murder will out,
so from the abundance of the heart the mouth
speaketh.' The dog will bark and whine; the
brute is known by british instincts, and so,
likewise, as the germ of all rottenness is in
herent in the Yankee heart, the brute, the
thief, the villain. the dog with doggish in
stincts and passions, will be developed when
ever the chance is afforded by fraud or force of
arms. They are welcome to indulge their
hendISh instincts II they Will select subjects
among themselves; but TO be forced to an asso-
citation of any kind with those before whom
virtue withers, and at whose presence common
deeency instincitiyely revolts, would be a
penalty in comparison with which imprison-
ment would be an Eden home, exile grand
luxury, and death sweet and glorious priyi-
legen
On the 18th of February he wrote: IshouId
have recorded that on Sunday afternoon /
preached to the colored people from Heb. w.,
49, &c."
After the battle of Franklin, Tenn, he wrote
" We have captured six thousand prisoners;
would much prefer they dead; we have
no rations to spare the poor devils. The enemy,
thank God, are retreating towards Murfrees-
boro, having been cut off from Nashville by
the old war horse, General Forrest. ] trust
the last scamp will leave his bones on Tennes-
see soil and become food for buzzards, if the
buzzards can digest them and if they cannot
it will go hard with them, for they are unaccus-
toned to preying upon as corrupt material as
a Yankee carcass"
The above was copied perbatim Ell ,iteratim
from the original within week after it was
captured. Is it TO be wondered at that the
ignorant whites Of the South should be rebels,
when even the ministers Of the Gospel preached
to them in strains like the above?
BATTLE CREEK, MIcH. r. w. SURBY
THE QUESTION SQUAD.