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SEPTEMBER, 1862      DOUGLASS MONTHLY.      717
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persons, whom he designates "bushwhackers."  Some of the military authorities seem to suppose that their end will be better attained by a savage war, in which no quarter is to be given, and no age or sex is to be spared,than by such hostilities as above recognized to be lawful in modern times.

We find ourselves driven by our enemy and by steady progress, towards a practice which we abhor, and which we are vainly striving to avoid.  Under these circumstances this government has issued the accompanying general orders, which I am directed by the President to transmit to you, recognizing Maj. Gen. Pope and his commissioned officers to be in the position which they have chosen by themselves that of robbery, murder, and not that of public enemies entitled if captured to be treated as prisoners of war. 

The President also instructs me to inform you that we renounce our right of retaliation on the innocent, and will continue to treat the private enlisted soldiers of Gen. Pope's army as prisoners of war, but if after notice to your government that we confine  repressive measures to the punishment of commissioned officers who are ready and willing participants in the crimes of the savage practices threatened in the orders alluded to, be persisted in, we shall reluctantly be forced to the last resort, of accepting the war on the terms chosen by our enemies, until the voice of outraged humanity shall compel a respect for the recognized usages of war.

While the President considers that the facts referred to would justify a refusal on our part to execute the cartel by which we have agreed to liberate an excess of prisoners of war in our hands, a sacred regard for pligted faith which shrinks from the semblance of breaking a promise, precludes a resort to such an extremity.  Nor is it his desire to extend to any other forces of the United States the punishment merited by Gen. Pope and such commissioned officers as choose to participate in the execution of his infamous order.

I have the honor to be very respectfully your Obedient Servant,   
R. E. LEE,
General Commanding.

GENERAL ORDER, NO. 54.

From the Adjutant and Inspector General's Office, Richmond, Virginia, August 1, are enclosed.  They refer to the future retaliatory course of the Southern Confederacy, owing to the recent orders of the President of the United States, and Generals Pope and Steinwher.  They were published Saturday:

HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY     }
Washington, August, 9, 1862. }

To Gen. R. E. Lee, Commanding, &c.:

General:  Your two communications of the 2nd instant, with enclosures are received.  As the papers are couched in language exceedingly insulting to the Government of the United States, I must respectfully decline to receive them.  They are returned herewith.

Very respectfully your obedient servant
H. W. HALLECK, 
Commander in Chief U.S. Army.
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LETTER FROM GEN. HUNTER TO REV. DR. TYNG:
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HILTON HEAD, PORT ROYAL, S. C. July 17.

Rev. STEPHEN H. TYNG, President of the National Freeman's Relief Association, N. Y. City :

Sir——I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication dated June 2, 1862, expressing to me the approval of my course in regard to the freed slaves of this department by the important and benevolent association of which you are President.

Satisfied of having attempted, in the absence of instructions, to do my duty in the matter according to the best lights of my judgment and a long experience, every assurance of sympathy from men whose characters I esteem, is gratifying, and enables me to wait with more patience for those ihevitable days which are to give a policy on the slavery question to our Government.

It is my only fear that the lessons may not be understood and acted upon until read in
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characters of blood at the fireside of every Northern family.  To attain wisdom we must suffer; but that wisdom on the slavery question must finally be obtained, is my sustaining faith.

But in the presence of one great evil which has so long brooded over our country, the intelligence of a large portion of our people would seem paralyzed and helpless.  Their moral nerves lie torpid under its benumbing shadow.  Its breath has been the pestilence of the political atmosphere in which our statesmen have been nurtured; and never I fear, until its beak is dripping with the best blood of the country, and its talons tangled in her vitals, will the free masses of the loyal States be fully aroused to the necessity of abating the abomination at whatever cost and by whatever agencies.

Our people are not dull of comprehension in regard to matters about which free play is given to their common sense.  When a fire is spreading through a block of houses, they do not hesitate to batter down an intermediate house to save the remainder of the block.——When the plague occupies an infected district the district is quarantined, and every resource of science and industry put forth to rid the locality of its presence.  The soldiers of health are by no means ordered to mount guard over each smitten house and see that the vested interests of pestilence are protected——"Break open doors, if they be not opened,' is the order on these occasions.  "Let in fresh air and sunlight; let purity replace corruption."

This is written, not politically, but according to my profession in the military sense.——Looking forward, there looms up a possibility (only too possible) of a peace which shall be nothing, but an armistice, with every advantage secured to the rebellion.  Nothing can give us permanent peace but a successful prosecution of the war with every weapon and energy at our command, to its logical and legitimate conclusion   The fomenting cause of the rebellion must be abated; the axe must be laid to the root of the upas tree, which has rained down such bitter fruit upon our country, before anything like a permanent peace can be justly hoped.

Already I see in many influential quarters, heretofore opposed to my views in favor of arming the blacks, a change of sentiment.——Our recent disasters before Richmond have served to illuminate many minds.

To speak  of using the negroes merely for throwing up intrenchments is a step in the right direction, though far short of what must be the end.  It has the advantage, however, of making the further and final step necessary; for men working in the face of the enemy must have arms with which to protect themselves if suddenly attacked.

On the whole, there is much reason to be satisfied with the progress made by public sentiment, considering how deeply rooted were the prejudices to be overcome, the general failure of the nation to realize at first the proportions of the war, and the impunity still extended to those Northern traitors who are the plunderers of the Government, by means of fraudulent army and navy contracts, on the one hand, while using every energy of tongue and pen to excite discontent with our Government and sympathy with the more candid and courageous traitors of the South who are in arms against us.

In conclusion it may not be inappropriate to say that in transmitting the approval of the National Freedman's Relief Association of my course, you were——doubtless unconsciously——indorsing views which your own earnest eloquence had no slight share in maturing.  Though without the pleasure of your personal acquaintance, I was during a year, a member of your  congregation, and take this opportunity of gratefully acknowledging my indebtedness to your teachings.

Your letter would have been earlier answered, had not pressing duties too fully occupied my time.

Believe me, sir, very truly, your obliged and obedient servant,    
D. HUNTER.
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P.S.——None of the carefully fostered delusions by which slavery has sustained itself at the North, is more absurd than the bugbear of "a general migration of negroes to the North," as a necessasy sequence of emancipation.  So far is this from the fact, that altho' it is well known that I give passes North to all negroes asking them, not more than a dozen have applied to me for such passes since my arrival here, their local attachments being apparently much stronger than with the white race.  My  experience leads me to believe that the exact reverse of the received opinion on this subject would form the rule, and that nearly if not quite, all the negroes of the North would migrate South whenever they shall be at liberty to do so without fear of the auction block.

Sincerely,    D. H.
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——There are sixty hospitals in Richmond.  Allowing each to contain 200 patients——which is a very small average——the aggregate of sick and wounded rebel soldiers in that city would be twelve thousand.

——It is reported from Washington that their is an immediate want of about 200 well educated and energetic physicians, to fill the positions of surgeon and assistant surgeon in the regular service.  Salaries $180 and $120 per month, respectively.

——The New York Express says it is understood in military circles that the levy of 300,000 militia is to be organized upon the mode of the French National Guard.  They are to be fully armed, equipped and drilled, and allowed to attend to their business, subject to immediate call for duty.

——The sudden interruption of telegraphic communication between Harrison's Landing and Washington, caused by the breaking of the cable across Chesapeake Bay, brought Gen. McClellan down the James one afternoon last week, on his way to Cherry Stone to hold his usual telegraphic conversation with Gen. Halleck.

——The engine-house of the Hannibal and St Joseph Railroad, at St. Joseph, Mo., with five locomotives and other machinery, was burned on the night of the 15th.  Only one engine was saved.  Loss $600,000, and only partially insured.

——It having been decided to make Portsmouth Grove, R. I., a permanent hospital, twenty-eight buildings for hospital purposes are being erected, each one to be 250 feet long by 30 wide, one and a half stories high.

——Mayor Bemis, of Springfield, has issued a proclamation cautioning persons from leaving that city to avoid a draft.  The police will arrest all who attempt to leave under suspicious circumstances.

——The reinforcements of our arm  s in the field, raised under the President's late calls are, now reaching their respective destinations at the rate of five thousand a day, says a Washington dispatch. 

——The Louisville Journal mentions that troops are pouring into Kentucky from Indiana and Ohio, till quite a formidable army has collected, but it is not at liberty to speak of their destination.

——Secretary Chase has given permission to Gen. Dix to retain in his possession the flags taken from the revenue cutter McClellan, which were taken from that vessel just before she was burnt by the rebels at New Orleans.

——It is announced that four full regiments o Union troops have been raised in Arkansas and organized at Cassville since July last.
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