lling intelligence that a
General has been shot in cold blood, and whilst under the protecting and
sacred influence of a flag of truce. Such dastardly and treacherous
conduct, thrills one with a righteous indignation, and we are more than
ever impressed with the belief that measures, the most rigorous, should
be instituted, and that the government should put to one side any
feelings of mawkish sentimentality, and mete out to these red-handed
savages the retribution their desserts merit.
The case under consideration is only one among many. How many immigrant
trains dragging their slow length over the trackless and boundless
prairies, have met a similar fate; and their misfortune never so much as
heard of. Whole villages on the borders have been attacked, captured and
pillaged; their inhabitants murdered in cold blood, or carried off into
a captivity that was worse even than the knife of the savage. Who can
count the lonely victims who have been waylaid on their toilsome
journey, by a party of howling savages, and being surrounded, before
they were aware almost of the presence of an enemy, set upon and brained
in the most cruel manner, and their bodies left weltering in their own
gore, a repast for wolves and coyotes--horrible reflection; to think of
the numbers who have suffered this fate, and died unknelled, uncoffined,
and unknown; while their murderers were these same gentle red children,
of whose interests the government has exercised such a watchful care,
guarding them against the rigors of winter by a plentiful supply of food
and blankets, and during the spring furnishing them with powder and the
most improved fire-arms, that they might thereby be enabled to steal
forth from their reservation, prey on helpless travelers, and returning
covered with the blood of their white brothers; praise their Great
Father at Washington, and thank him, through their agent, for the many
inestimable gifts he has placed in their hands, by whose judicious use
they have gratified their dominant passions, and turned many a happy
home into a chamber of mourning.
Out upon such a policy! War, to the bitter end, is the only "policy"
that should be for a moment entertained, in dealing with these fiends;
and when they are at last exterminated off the face of the earth, it
may, perhaps, be safe for a man to undertake to travel through his own
land. My readers may think I speak with undue heat on this subject, but
the memory of my sufferings
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