enemy than the killing of a
thousand men in battle. According to their doctrine, it is
peculiarly proper and merciful to shoot pickets; yet they propose
to interpolate on the laws of war a provision that pickets shall
not be shot. This provision is, in accordance with our philosophy,
founded on Christian principles and the dictates of healthy
humanity, for pickets are not active belligerents, and can oppose
no force to the stealthy attacks made on them by unseen enemies. To
kill a picket is like fighting an unarmed man, a child or a woman.
It is eminently right according to the selfish and silly philosophy
of writers on national law, but inhuman, and therefore wrong,
according to our philosophy, which is founded on Christian
injunctions and natural feelings.

'Yet, as a matter of necessity, we would encourage the shooting of
pickets. We of the South are accustomed to the use of arms, are
individually brave and self-reliant, can creep upon their pickets
and shoot them in the night, and thus carry out our defensive
policy of exhausting in detail the superior numbers of the invading
North. We must be conquered and subjugated unless we take advantage
of all our peculiarities of habits, customs, localities, and
institutions. We have to make a choice of evils; either shoot
pickets, or by neglecting to do so, cut off one of our most
available arms of defense. We must fight the 'devil with fire.' Our
enemy professes no allegiance to the laws of morality nor to the
laws of God. We must deal with them as Moses dealt with the people
of Canaan, so long as they invade our territory. But we are not
God's chosen people, not his instruments to punish Canaanites, and
we will not follow them when they retreat to their barren Northern
homes. There a just and avenging God is already punishing them for
their crimes. Left to themselves, and our real enemies--those of
the North-east--will perish, for they have little means of support
at home, and have not learned to avail themselves of those means,
trusting that a generous and confiding South would continue to feed
and clothe them.

'In old countries, where there are few trees, forests, or other
hiding-places, and where the country people are unused to firearms,
an invaded country gains little by shooting pickets;