The Nation's Peril. Anonymous
been gradually worked over to the interests of the more intelligent leaders, until reason and argument ceased further to influence them. They seemed wholly given up to the one idea of slavery, or war, and they had been led to believe that the first demonstration of organized resistance to the regularly constituted powers, would bring the North at their feet in abject supplication for peace. I was anxious to know how the defiant and belligerent attitude that was being assumed would be received in the land of my birth, and as my health had sufficiently improved to warrant my again returning there, I did so at the earliest opportunity, only to realize that the people of the North were buckling on their armor, with the deep seated purpose of going forth to battle for the right.
There was a significance in all “this busy note of preparation,” that I could fully understand and appreciate. I had seen enough to convince me that nothing but the severest chastisement, administered by the hands of the Lord through the instrumentality of his chosen people, could bring our misguided brethren of the South to a just and proper sense of their duty to God and their fellow-men. They had long “eaten of the bread of wickedness; and drank the wine of violence,” and they had utterly forgotten that “righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people.”
An opportunity was speedily afforded me to accompany a regiment to the field as chaplain, and I soon found myself marching southward with a body of noble men who had been foremost in responding to the call of President Lincoln, to defend the Union and preserve the integrity of the nation. The incidents of the four years of bloody strife that ensued, need not be alluded to here. They were passed by me, in the midst of danger, offering consolation to the dying, caring tenderly for the dead, when circumstances permitted, and coming out of all, through the hand of God, unscathed.
The results aimed at upon the part of the ruling powers, seemed to have been accomplished. The Proclamation of Emancipation had gone forth from the executive head of the nation, and solid rows of glittering steel had followed it up, and compelled its enforcement. The foulest blot upon the pages of our history as a Republic had been erased, and its down-trodden children liberated from a thraldom more humiliating in design, and wicked in purpose, than that which yoked the children of Israel under the hands of the Egyptian task masters. In them the promise of the Great Jehovah had been verified: “Wherefore:—say unto the Children of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burden of the Egyptians.” The right had been vindicated; the shock of contending armies was over, and the nation waited patiently to see in what condition the contest had left the conquered.
It is my purpose, in these pages, to give the exact facts, “nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice.” I shall endeavor neither to exaggerate the history, or conceal the truth. I am aware that the revelations which follow are so terrible in their nature as to almost pass the bounds of belief; that the agonizing scenes herein depicted, and which have been the results of the same demoniac spirit which actuated and prolonged the war, had they been told as occurring among the semi-barbaric nations in the uttermost parts of the earth, might be the more readily received by my countrymen as truthful relations; but which, transpiring at our own doors, within the sound and under the shadow of the Gospel, appear like the mythical creations of a distorted imagination rather than actual revelations from real life.
In the interest of all progress, and for the sake of God and humanity, I would it were so; but the contrary is the fact. Hundreds of living witnesses stand ready to verify the statements under oath. Scores of the unoffending skeletons of gibbeted negroes and whites attest the solemn truth. The exact localities, the names and residences of the victims, the hour and day, the month and year of their murderous whipping and ignominious death, are given with a fidelity that challenges contradiction, and forms an array of evidence at once incontrovertable and overwhelming.
The ever changing current of events again called me to the South. My sister’s family had been almost destroyed by the death of her husband, who had cast his fortunes with the cause of the rebellion and had paid the penalty with his life, and it was necessary I should aid her in adjusting the affairs of the estate which had been left in a very unsettled condition, and required much time to properly arrange. I was glad of the opportunity thus afforded me to observe the effects of the struggle that had just closed; and prepared my mind to take a calm and dispassionate view of the situation, as became a seeker for the truth who was desirous of arriving at the hidden springs underlying the social crust, with a view to the remedy of the impending evil, if such could be found. I believed in the integrity of the great mass of the people, and could see that they had been deceived and led on to destruction by the ingenious plans of men, skilled in human diplomacy, and having a profound knowledge of the character of the people whom they designed to move for their own wicked purposes.
The spirits of these leaders chafed under the bitter disappointment of defeat. It was apparent they would continue to foster seditions, organize conspiracies against the powers that be, and use every effort to fan into life the dying embers of the “lost cause.” These men controlled certain portions of the local press, and either threw obstacles in the way of the dissemination of proper and just principles, or used the power in their hands to sow the seeds of dissention broadcast throughout the States so lately in insurrection.
All the misery that had accrued from the war, the families that had been sundered; the blood of loved ones that had watered the various battle-fields of the South, and the bones of beloved kindred that lay whitening there; the numerous sacrifices of wealth, family, and social position that had been made, the property lost and destroyed; the general stagnation and prostration of business, and the feeling of dread and insecurity that followed, were all attributed to the rule of the republican North.
There were mutterings of revenge and breathings of threats and slaughter against the race that had just been raised up out of bondage. Slavery, the former bane and curse of this country, was already dead. Its putrid carcass was no longer of the material things of earth, but its ghostly spirit still stalked abroad among its mourners to keep alive the memory of its wicked example in the minds of those who, born and reared in the folds of its garments, and nurtured at its breast, could not cast aside their early prejudices and banish from their hearts, its former evil influences. They no longer remembered that “the way of the Lord is strength to the upright,” and that “destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity.” Thousands of misguided and misdirected men cherished in their bosoms a spirit of animosity toward those who had aided with their blood and money in the liberation of the slave; and it was this very spirit of hatred which had in a manner demoralized the South and created a feeling of uncertainty and insecurity among men of capital, that proved a serious barrier to their investing in our railroads and factories, and the improvement of our lands; and, as a natural sequence, retarded our social and financial progress.
Society at this time was divided into several classes. Many who were disposed to accept and abide by the new order of things, dared not express their real sentiments from fear of social and political ostracism. Men of intelligence and education, but who had allowed the thirst for power and political preferment to absorb and swallow up the promptings of their better nature, had begun the process of gaining over to their interests the very worst elements in the social circle beneath them, with a view to carrying out their unholy designs. This class in turn, and under the management of the more intelligent, intimidated still another class and compelled them to join in a crusade that had for its objects the most infamous ends ever attempted to be gained by men. A complete connection had thus been formed, reaching from the unscrupulous leaders, to the masses, and embracing in its chain every class of society needed for the success of the general plan.
The standard bearers of the devil himself, coming direct from the lowest depths of the infernal regions, with seething vials of wrath and an earnest intention to do the bidding of their master, could scarcely have set on foot a conspiracy more damnable than this. Men, women and children were to be included in the portending storm, religion and human decency were to be outraged, the law of the land and its administrators defied, and justice scoffed at in the pillory. The ordinary safe-guards to the social well being of the community were to be swept away whenever they became inimical to the designs and objects of the unholy alliance thus formed. Men were to be banded together and bound by oaths that ignored all others and made these supreme. Where the life or liberty of one of the brotherhood was in jeopardy, he was to be saved at