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Confederate Congress, and is fully inaugurated over a large part of
the South. As there practiced now, it is distinguished from regular
warfare by two things: First, the troops are not under any brigade
commander, but operate in small bands, much at their pleasure, with
a general responsibility to the major-general commanding in their
department.

One result of this feature of the system is to develop a large
amount of talent in the ranks, as every man has an individual
responsibility, and constant opportunities to test his shrewdness
and daring. It also gives a perfect knowledge of all roads and
localities to the whole force in a given section, as some one or
more soldiers will be found in each gang, who, in their frequent
maraudings, have traversed every by-path and marked every important
point.

The second prominent characteristic of guerrilla warfare, is the
license it gives to take by force from supposed enemies or neutrals,
horses, cash, munitions of war, and, in short, any thing which can
aid the party for which he fights; _with the promise of full pay for
whatever he brings off to his head-quarters_. This is the essential
principle of the system, giving it its power and destructiveness. As
it displaces patriotism from the breast of the fighter, and
substitutes in its room the desire for plunder, the men thus engaged
become highway robbers in organized and authorized bands. Nor do
guerrilla bands long confine their depredations to known enemies.
Wherever a good horse can be found, wherever silver plate is
supposed to be secreted, wherever money might be expected, there
they concentrate and rob without inquiry as to the character of the
owner. Hence the system is destructive to all confidence, and to the
safety of even innocent and defenseless females.

It requires no prophet's ken to foresee that the Confederate
authorities have commenced a system which will utterly demoralize
all engaged in it; destroy the peace, and endanger the safety of
non-combatants, and eventually reduce to ruin and anarchy the whole
community over which these bands of robbers have their range.

This process has already commenced, and if the loyal troops were
withdrawn to-day from all Secessia, and the South allowed its
independence, the people would find themselves in the hands of
bandits to harass and plunder for months to come, and would have
long scores of wrongs to right, which have been inflicted upon
neutrals and friends of