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 ^[[B K Ross]]

DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.

"OPEN THY MOUTH FOR THE DUMB, IN THE CAUSE OF ALL SUCH AS ARE APPOINTED TO DESTRUCTION; OPEN THY MOUTH, JUDGE RIGHTEOUSLY, AND PLEAD THE CAUSE OF THE POOR AND NEEDY."– Proverbs xxxi. 8, 9.

VOLUME IV. NUMBER IX  
ROCHESTER, NEW YORK, MARCH, 1862. 
PRICE–ONE DOLLAR PER ANNUM.

CONTENTS OF THE PRESENT NUMBER.

The Situation of the War - 609
The Popular Heart - 610
More Infamy - 611
The Orator of Freedom - 611
France and the United States - 611
Interesting Extracts - 612
Speech of Frederick Douglass - 613
Will the Contrabands Fight? - 618
The Rebels in England - 619
Anti-Slavery Bazaar in Bristol - 621
Address to the People of Georgia - 622
Slaveholders and the British Aristocracy - 623
Willingness of the Contrabands to Labor - 623

DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.

THE SITUATION OF THE WAR.

At last the tide of Battle seems fairly turned in favor of the union forces.  The blows of the loyal army have fallen thick and fast, and with overwhelming effect, upon the back, if not upon the head of the rebel forces.  The past month will be memorable for the first succession of loyal victories over the slaveholding rebels since the war began.  Humphrey Marshall, with three thousand rebels, scattered and broken up in Kentucky.  Immediately following, Zollicoffer is killed, and his army cut to pieces at Mill Springs, in the same State.  A little later, Fort Henry, held by the rebels is taken.  Next Roanoke Island is captured, and nearly three thousand rebel prisoners are taken; while the ink is still wet on the paper containing this news, there comes the report that Fort Donelson a powerful rebel fortification, the chief hinderance to the advance of the loyal army upon Nashville Tennessee, held by thirty thousand men-falls, and nineteen thousand rebel prisoners are captured.  The shouts over this victory have scarcely died on the breeze, when lo! tidings reach us that the rebel army in Missouri under General Price is in full retreat from that State to Arkansas, with the loyal army under GeneraL Sigel close upon their heels:  Mean while too, the lightning brings us the news that Clarkville, Tennessee, a town of two or three thousand, is captured, and the flag of the Union waves over the soil of that rebellious State, while the loyal army is still pressing forward.  The rebellion viewed from a military out look, is evidently in a bad way, and unless speedily relieved by some marked and sudden victories over the Federal arms, as that gained in July at Bull Run, Mason and Slidell's mission to Europe is at end, and the armed revolution of the slave States against the Government crumbles to ruin.

The following will show at a glance the victories gained on both sides since the commencement of the war:

UNION VICTORIES, 1861.

June 2 – Philippa.
June 17 – Booneville.
July 5 – Brier Forks, Sigel's victory.
July 11 – Defeat of Pegram by McClellan.
July 13 – Carrick's Ford, Gen. Garnett killed, a Rebel.
August 28 – Hattaras Forts.
Sept. 10 – Rout of Floud,Gauley Bridge.
Oct 5 – Second Defeat of rebels at Hattaras.
Oct 8 – Santa Rosa Island.
Oct. 11 – Repulse at South Pass.
Oct. 25 – Charge of Fremont's Body Guard.
Oct. 27 – Romney, Kelley wounded.
Oct. 22 – Fredericktown Missouri.
Nov. 7 – Port Royal.
Dec. 13 – Camp Alleghany, Virginia.
Dec. 18 – 1300 rebels captured by  Pope in Mo.
Dec. 18 – Drainsville.

1862.

Second Repulse at Santa  Rosa.
Humphrey Marshall's route.
Capture of rebel batteries in South Carolina.
Mill Spring, Zollicoffer killed.
Fort Henry.
Roanoke Island.
Fort Donelson, 15,000 prisoners taken.

REBEL VICTORIES 1861.
April 12 – Fort Sumter.
June 10 – Big Bethel.
July 21 – Bull Run.
Aug. 10 – Wilson's Creek, Gen. Lyon killed.
Sept. 20 – Lexington.
Oct. 21 – Massacre of Ball's Bluff.
Nov. 7 – Belmont.

1862, NONE

RECAPITULATION
Union victories, 24 * Rebel victories, 7; ratio 3 to 1.
The month that has closed has been one of almost analloyed triumph. We recapitulate as follows:--

The capture of Fort Henry
The victory of Roanoke.
The capture of Edenton, Elizabeth City, etc. The destruction of the Rebel Navy in the North Carolina waters.
The retreat of the Rebels from Bowling Green.
The capture of several prizes at sea.
Further advances towards Savannah.
The fight of Fort Donelson.

The loyal country is everywhere jubilant over he prospect, while the rebels are despondent and desperate.  The boast that one southern gentleman is equal to five Northern men disappears from the columns of Southern papers and the cry of disaffection and treachery among themselves, begin to come up from all quarters of rebellion.  Clouds and darkness quite overshadow the Southern sky.  Failure is plainly written on the rebellion as a military power.  It may not have slept its last sleep nor fought its last battle.  Far from it.  We expect a tremendous fight, such as will beggar all past battles between the two armies.  The South will not lay down its arms under such a succession of crushing defeats as have happened during the past month.– Taking counsel of despair they may even be driven to assume the offensive, and by a sudden movement regain their woefully diminished prestige, and thus prolong the war to an indefinite period or till some foreign power shall step between the belligerents.  If the battle of Bull Run could cause our army to halt upon the Potomac for seven months, a greater victory on the part of the rebels, may make it halt again.  All hope that the rebels will now lay down their arms and sue for terms of peace, are based upon such stuff as dreams are made of.  More fighting and that more desperate and terrible than any which has thus far happened, may be justly apprehended.  Nevertheless, we set down the rebellions as a military measure a woeful failure.– Its victories, best of them have been won more through the weakness and treachery of so called loyal officers, than through any military superiority or bravery on the part of its army or its officers.  Balls Bluff was evidently a planned butchery of our troops, by and through the murderous treachery of General Stone.  It was in no sense a battle.  Our men were simply marched up to be slaughtered by the iron hail and fire of a concealed foe, with no alternative left them but to die under fire or water.  Bull Run was notoriously lost to us by the more plausible weakness or treachery of General Patterson, who permitted Johnson to escape from Winchester and reinforce Beauregard at Manassas, so that the only two victories which the rebels can make any show upon, are victories given them, not gained by them.  To abandon the war at this point, would leave a stigma upon Southern courage which all the waters of the Mississippi could never wash out; and we therefore do not flatter ourselves that the war is over, though we do think that the end is near, even at the door.

We have spoken of the failure of the rebellion as a military power.  As a political power its prospects are far better than a month ago.  For every man the rebels lose at the South by defeat, they gain two at the North in the way of political sympathizers.  So that the object of the rebellion seems about as well, served by defeat, as by victory.

Primarily, that object is the safety and ascendancy of chattel slavery in the Southern States and in respect to this the rebellion with all its losses is a decided success.  The prestige and power of slavery as a political element, continues through all to be all controlling over the whole United States.  It would be hard to name any terms which the slaveholders could not even now obtain from the Government at Washington.  They have only to lay down their arms and come into the Government to be again in the masters of the republic.  The democratic party of the North, the ancient ally of the slaveholders, has no such anger and hatred for the slaveholders, as it must cherish toward the republican party, and the abolitionists.  It opens both arms to receive into its fellowship all the rebels and traitors as erring brothers, and to restore them by a general amnesty to all the rights and privileges in the Government, which they have forfeited by their treason.

Those of us who looked to this war as the final solution of slavery, have gained nothing to our view by the recent victories over the confederates.  The North has been angry with the South only as a child is angry with a pet, and that anger soon passes away when the pet has been well kicked.  We are now ready to make up and hug the darling slaveholders with a fondness as ardent as ever.

To our mind, we are now at the most critical and dangerous period of the war.  A determined effort is making by the pro-slavery press of the North to substitute generosity for justice in their treatment of the slaveholding traitors, and to utterly fling away what has been gained by arms, through a weak and treacherous magnanimity towards a fallen and desperate 

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