hung
upon the action of this assembly. The authorities were waiting with
bated breath until they could hear what their Northern friends would
consider proper and feasible to be at once entered upon. He wanted no
more promises without performance. He would save the Confederacy by
any means if he could, and would consider himself justified. If some
of these measures had been resorted to much earlier it would have been
better. He said that war was mere barbarism and cruelty; that plunder,
burning, pillage and assassination were merely the concomitants, and a
part of the system, of all wars; that when men make war it means crime,
rapine and murder, and those engaging in it should so understand. Each
party is expected to capture all of the enemy that can be so taken,
and to kill all that resist. It was proper to pick out and deliberately
shoot down the Generals. He asked if it would be any worse to secretly
capture Lincoln and Silent, the two leaders and commanders of all the
United States forces, or to assassinate either or both of them, than to
shoot them near our lines. He contended that if either or both of them
should be seen near the Confederate lines they would be shot down, and
the persons doing it would be rewarded with medals of honor, and would
go down into history as great patriots for performing the act. If this
were true, as all must concede, why should it be considered a dark and
damnable deed in time of war, when a great and dire necessity required,
for two such tyrants to be put out of the way in the cause of liberty?
He insisted that no difference could exist, save in the minds of
individuals morbid on the subject of human life. He said that he had
witnessed enough shamming, and heard enough shallow professions, and
wanted no more of either; that the promises of some of their Northern
friends, already broken, had cost the Confederacy millions of dollars in
coin, and had left him individually bankrupt and impoverished. There had
been nothing but a series of failures growing out of the pretenses
of some of their Northern allies. He was very severe on many of them,
especially on Cornington and Eagle, of Chicago, and Strider and Bowen,
of Indiana, all of whom he charged with getting large sums of money for
use in the late election and for other purposes. He said they neither
accounted for its disposition, nor had they entered an appearance, after
promising on their obligation to do so. This he considered the
mos