Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1888-12-21

be!ocs; 20 the organized forces Of the
on4Sn ;srmy. He would have stood in
precisely the position of abush-
Wnacker" or guerrilla. And he wonld
PROBABLY have been shot or hung mat
as soon as his captors could make the
necessary arrangements.
A hard and cruel fate," the reader.
even the veteran reader, will saw
GRANTED; but it would haze besn
surety in accordance with the laws of
war, which never stop to consider
whether thing is Cruel" or not. AID
know not how our Government
under the circumstances, could have
taken any exc ption to such disyosal
OF such prisonvr.
That is the T te which the male popu-
iation of Gettysburg and the surround.
ing country would hav= invoked for
themselves had they taken up arms
and fought the Confederates. More
than that might have happened to them
and theirs, and the stern laws of war
would have sustained the treatment.
Their town might have be n merci-
lessly shelled had they fred on the
enemy from their houses. II no donht
would have been.
Something of this kind General
Burnside visit ID 81 Fredericksburg in
December, 1862, before the battle,
when the Confederat sharpshooters
occupied some of the houses to prevent
the laying of the pontoons.
This is question that ought always
to be considered stripped of sentiment.
We must remember that only the reg
ularly organized, uniformed and en-
rolled soldiers of th government under
whose flag they fight are entitled to be
treated as prisoners of war, when cap
tured. ALI others taken under arms
are liable to be executed without even
the poor privilege of a drum-head court
martial.
The town of Gettysburg and Adams
County, in which it is situated, were
we'll and largely represented in the
Pennsylvania regiments of the Army of
the Potomac. Many of these men
fought, and some fell during those
three grand days, in sight OF the roofs
under which they We're born. There
ought to be no stigma cast upon the
devotion of that historic town to the
Union cause.
have no doubt that my view of this
question may strike many of my COM
rades who regularly read The CHICAGO
LEDGER as something new, if not
strange. Let me, then, show them
from the unquestionad history OF the
war what dreadful cruelties and enor-
mites resulted from just one attempt
to call out the citizens to take arms
against the enemy.
Hunter led large Union force up the
Shenandoah Valley. Near Lexing ton
he occupi, d the deserted mansion of
Governor John Letcher. A large num-
Der of printed proclamations were
found in that house, with the Govern
or's name at the bottom, calling upon
the p ,ople of Virginia in stirring lam
guage to waylay and "bushwhack" the
invading army, and impede its progress
in every possible way. This may not
have been the language, but it was the
meaning Of the proclamation.
It was afterward claimed that this
document had never been circulated.
But General Hunter was an old regu-
lar, and knew what the laws of war
authorized him to do in such case.
Reprisals are always cruel, and it is
doubtful whether sound military policy
will advise them. But General Hun
ter had no scruples about it, and he
promptly burned Governor Letcher's
house to the ground.
The act, just or not, raised storm
of indignation among the Confeder-
ates. A few weeks later, when Cen
eral Early invaded Maryland, some of
his cavalry destroyed the house of Gov
ernor Bailey, in the vicinity of Balti-
more.
Revenge did not stop here. The
town OF Chambersburg, Pa, was
burned by McCausland on the 3Oth OF
that July, and thousands of women
and children made homeless. We
have evidence that some of the Confed-
crate officers were opposed to this out
rage; but it was declared in favor of
it that Hunters enormities had not
been sufficiently avenged. So the torch
was mercilessly applied.
War is shocking enough, and entails
misery enough on the innocent, even
when most humanely conducted. But
the reader will see from this instance
what suffering and hardships may
come from merely an attempt to incite
non-combatants to take up arms irreg-
ularly.-Chicago Ledger.
How We Did During the War.
BYA SOUTHERN LADY.