The National tribune., 1898-01-20

educated in the same principles, speak
ing the same language-thousand Of
his brethren in race, creed, and all that
unite men into great communities-
starving, rotting, and freezing to death.
There is many a man who has a
hatred so intense that nothing but the
death of the detested one will satisfy it;
still fewer number thirst for a moro
comprehensive retribution-tbey would
STAY, perhaps, halfdozen persons;
and there may be such gluttons of re-
venge as would not be satisfied with tho
sacrifice of less than score or two, but
such would be monsters Of whom there
have been very few, even in fiction.
How must they all bow their diminished
heads before q man who fed his AMI
mostly fat with tens of thousands of
lives.
But what also mitigates greatly against
the presumption that either revenge or
an abnormal predisposition to cruelty
could have animated Winder is that
the possession of any two such mental
traits SO strongly marked would pre-
suppose a corresponding activity of
other intellectual faculties, which was
not true of him, as from all | can learn
of him his mind was in no respect extra
ordinary.
1t does not seem possible that he had
either the brain to conceive or the
firmness of purpose to carry out so
gigantic and long-enduring career Of
cruelty, because that would imply super
human qualities in a man who had pre-
viously held his own very poorly in the
competition with other men.
The probability is that neither Winder
nor his direct superiors Howell Cobb
and Jefferson Davis-conceived in all
its proportions the gigantic engine of
torture and death they were organizing;
nor did they comprehend the enormity
of the crime they were committing.
But they were willing to do much wrong
to gain their end; and the smaller
crimes of to-day prepared them for
greater ones tomorrow, and still greater
ones the day following. Killing 10 men
a day on Belle Isle in January, by
starvation and hardship, led very easily
to killing 100 men a day in Anderson
vile, in July, August and September.
Probably at the beginning of the war
they would have felt uneasy at Staying
one man per day by such means, but as
retribu:ion came not, and as their appe-
tite for slaughter grew with feeding, and
as their sympathy with human misery
atrophied from long suppression, they
ventured upon ever widening ranges Of
destructiveness. Had the war lasted
another year, and they lived, 800 deaths
day would doubtless have been insult
ficent to disturb them.
Winder doubtless went about his part
of the task of slaughter coolly, leisurely,
almost perfunctorily. He instituted GER
tain measures, and let things take their
course. That course was rapid transit
ton from bad to worse, but it was still
in the direction Of his wishes, and what
little of his own energy was infused into
it was in the direction of impetus-not
of controlling or improving the course.
TO have done things better would
have involved some personal discomfort.
He was not likely to incur personal dis
comfort to mitigate evils that were only
affecting some one else. By an effort
Of one hour day for two weeks he
could have had every man in Anderson
vile and Florence given good shelter
through his own exertion.. He was not
only too indifferent and too lazy to do
this, but he was too malignant; and
this neglect to allow-simply allow, re-
member-the prisoners to protect their
lives by providing their own shelter,
gives the key to his whole disposition,
and would stamp his memory with in-
fanny, even if there were no other
charges against him.
Ito be coHiiRued.l