the war. The Confiscation Bill, enacted at the close of the session of Congress, confiscated all the slaves belonging to those who were loyal to the South, constituting nine-tenths at least of the slaves in the Confederate States. In the Border States occupied by the North, slavery was plainly doomed under a plan of emancipation proposed by Mr. Lincoln with the flimsy and ridiculous pretence of compensation to slaveholders.*

These concessions to the radical party in the North excited new demands. The rule which was urged upon the government, and which the government hastened to accept, was to spare no means, however brutal, to contest the fortunes of the war, and to adopt every invention of torture for its enemy. The slaves were to be armed and carried in battalions against their masters. The invaded country of the South was to be pillaged, wasted and burnt; the Northern troops, like hungry locusts, were to destroy everything green; the people in the invaded districts were to be laid under contributions, compelled to do the work of slaves, kept in constant terrour of their lives, and fire, famine and slaughter were to be the portion of the conquered.

Before the eyes of Europe the mask of civilization had been taken from the Yankee war; it degenerated into unbridled

Making in the whole, 1,196,112 66

At the proposed rate of valuation, these would amount to $358,833,600 Add for deportation and colonization $100 each,

And we have the enormous sum of

119,244,533 $478,078,133

It is scarcely to be supposed that a proposition could be made in good faith, or that in any event the proposition could be otherwise than worthless, to add this vast amount to the public debt of the North at a moment when the treasury was reeling under the enormous expenditures of the war.

butchery and robbery. But the nations of Europe, which boasted themselves as humane and civilized, had yet no interference to offer in a war which shocked the senses and appealed to the common offices of humanity. It is to be observed, that during the entire continuance of the war up to this time, the British government had acted with reference to it in a spirit of selfish and inhuman calculation; and there is, indeed, but little doubt that an early recognition of the Confederacy by France was thwarted by the interference of that cold and sinister government, that ever pursues its ends by indirection and perfects its hypocrisy under the specious cloak of extreme conscientiousness. No greater delusion could have possessed the people of the South than that the government of England was friendly to them. That government, which prided itself on its cold and ingenious selfishness, seemed to have discovered a much larger source of profit in the continuation of the American war than it could possibly derive from a pacification of the contest. It was willing to see its operatives starving and to endure the distress of a "cotton famine," that it might have the ultimate satisfaction, which it anticipated, of seeing both parties in the American war brought to the point of exhaustion, and its own greatness enlarged on the ruins of a hated commercial rival. The 'calculation was far-reaching; it was characteristic of a government that secretly laughed at all sentiment, made an exact science of selfishness, and scorned the weakness that would sacrifice for any present good the larger fruits of the future.

This malevolent and venomous spirit of anti-slavery in the war pervaded the whole of Northern society. It was not only the utterance of such mobs as, in New York city, adopted as their war cry against the South, "kill all the inhabitants;" it found expression in the political measures, military orders and laws of the government; it invaded polite society, and was taught not only as an element of patriotism, but as a virtue of religion. The characteristic religion of New England, composed of about equal quantities of blasphemy and balder

dash, went hand in hand with the war. Some of these pious demonstrations were curious, and bring to remembrance the fanaticism and rhapsodies of the old Puritans.*

The Yankee army chaplains in Virginia alternately disgusted and amused the country with the ferocious raut with which they sought to inspire the crusade against the South. One of these pious missionaries in Winchester, after the regular Sunday service, announced to the assembled Yan an imaginary victory in front of Richmond, and for "three cheers and a tiger and Yankee Doc sermon preached near the enemy's camp of oc chaplain proclaimed the mission of freeing the mors, the told them they were free, and that, as the prope by their masters was the fruit of the labours of the blacks these had the best title to it and should help themselves. another place near the scene of the execution of John Brown for violation of law, sedition and murder, a sermon was preached by an army chaplain on some text enjoining "the mission of proclaiming liberty;" and the hymn given out and sung was—

"John Brown's body hangs dangling in the air,
Sing glory, glory, hallelujah!"

t

* No one affected the peculiarity of the Puritans more than Gov. Andrews, of Massachusetts. The following pious rant is quoted from one of his speeches at Worcester; in blasphemy and bombast it equals any of the fulminations of the "Pilgrim Fathers".

"I know that the angel of the Lord, one foot on the earth and one on the sea, will proclaim in unanswereble language, that four millions of bondmen shall ere long be slaves no longer. We live in a war, not a riot; as we thought last year, with a half million in the field against an atrocious and rebellious foe. Our government now recognizes it as a war, and the President of the United States, fulminating his war orders, has blown a blast before which the enemy must fly. Rebellion must fall, and they who have stood upon the necks of so many bondsmen shall be swept away and four milljon souls rise to immortality.

"Ah, foul tyrants! do you hear him where he comes?
Ah, black traitors! do you know him as he comes?
In the thunder of the cannon and the roll of the drums,
As we go marching on.

"Men may die and moulder in the dust

Men may die and arise again from the dust,
Shoulder to shoulder, in the ranks of the just,
When God is marching on.

These, however, were but indications displayed of a spirit in the North, which, with reference to the practical conduct of the war, were serious enough.

By a general order of the Washington Government, the military commanders of that government, within the States of Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, *Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas, were directed to seize and use any property, real or personal, belonging to the inhabitants of this Confederacy which might be necessary or convenient for their several commands, and no provision was made. for any compensation to the owners of private property thus seized and appropriated by the military commanders of the enemy.

But it was reserved for the enemy's army in Northern Virginia to exceed all that had hitherto been known of the savage cruelty of the Yankees, and to convert the hostilities hitherto waged against armed forces into a campaign of robbery and murder against unarmed citizens and peaceful tillers of the soil.

On the 23d of July, 1862, General Pope, commanding the forces of the enemy in Northern Virginia, published an order requiring that "all commanders of any army corps, divisions, brigades, and detached commands, will proceed immediately to arrest all disloyal male citizens within their lines, or within their reach, in rear of their respective commands. Such as are willing to take the oath of allegiance to the United States, and will furnish sufficient security for its observance, shall be permitted to remain at their homes and pursue in good faith their accustomed avocations. Those who refuse shall be conducted South, beyond the extreme pickets of this army, and be notified that, if found again anywhere within our lines, or at any point in rear, they shall be considered spies and subjected to the extreme rigour of military law. If any person, having taken the oath of allegiance as above specified, be found to have violated it, he shall be shot, and his property seized and applied to the public use.'

By another order of Brigadier-General Steinwehr, in. Pope's command, it was proposed to hold under arrest the most prominent citizens in the districts occupied by the enemy, as hostages, to suffer death in case of any of the Yankee soldiers being shot by "bushwhackers," by which term was meant the citizens of the South who had taken up arms to defend their homes and families.

The Washington Government had found a convenient instrument for the work of villainy and brutality with which it proposed to resume the active campaign in Virginia.

With a view to renewed operations against Richmond, large forces of Yankee troops were massed at Warrenton, Little Washington and Fredericksburg. Of these forces, entitled the "Army of Virginia," the command was given to Major-General John Pope, who boasted that he had come from the West where "he had only seen the backs of the enemy."

This notorious Yankee commander was a man nearly forty years of age, a native of Kentucky, but a citizen of Illinois. He was born of respectable parents. He was graduated at West Point in 1842, and served in the Mexican War, where he was breveted Captain.

In 1849 he conducted the Minnesota exploring expedition, and afterwards acted as topographical engineer in New Mexico, until 1853, when he was assigned to the command of one of the expeditions to survey the route of the Pacific railroad. He distinguished himself on the overland route to the Pacific by "sinking" artesian wells and government money to the amount of a million of dollars. One well was finally abandoned incomplete, and afterwards a perennial spring was found by other parties in the immediate vicinity. In a letter to Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, urging this route to the Pacific, and the boring these wells, Pope made himself the especial champion of the South.

In the breaking out of the war, Pope was made a BrigadierGeneral of Volunteers. He held a command in Missouri for some time before he became particularly noted. When Gen.