The worst characters of our great cities may be the fit equals of
Mississippi or Arkansas ruffians, but the mass of our army is not to be
brought down to the standard of rowdies or the level of barbarians. The
men of New England and of the West do not march under banners with
the device of "Booty and Beauty," though General Beauregard has the
effrontery to declare it, and Bishop, now General, Polk the ignorance
to utter similar slanders. The atrocities committed on our wounded and
prisoners by the "chivalry" of the South may excite not only horror, but
a wild fury of revenge. But our cause should not be stained with cruelty
and crime, even in the name of vengeance. If the war is simply one in
which brute force is to prevail, if we are fighting only for lust and
pride and domination, then let us have our "Ellsworth Avengers," and
let us slay the wounded of our enemy without mercy; let us burn their
hospitals, let us justify their, as yet, false charges against us; let
us admit the truth of the words of the Bishop of Louisiana, that the
North is prosecuting this war "with circumstances of barbarity which it
was fondly believed would never more disgrace the annals of a civilized
people." But if we, if our brothers in the army, are to lose the proud
distinctions of the North, and to be brought down to the level of
the tender mercies and the humane counsels of slaveholders and
slave-drivers, there would be little use in fighting.
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