But the intent of their captors was cruelty; and they strove to reduce the numbers, and to intimidate the courage, of the Federal soldiers, by acts of savage barbarity, as the relentless Tartar hoped to terrify the Hindoos into the profession of Mohammedanism by sacrificing multitudes, and deluging whole countries in blood. To deny the criminality is, as Lamartine says of the massacres of September, "to belie the right of feeling of the human race. It is to deny nature, which is the morality of instinct. There is nothing in mankind greater than humanity. It is not more permissible for a government than for a man to commit murder. If a drop of blood stains the hand of a murderer, oceans of gore do not make innocent the Dantons. The magnitude of the crime does not transform it into virtue. Pyramids of dead bodies rise high, it is true, but not so high as the execration of mankind." BOOK THIRD. I. Let us now examine and consider, with impartial eye, the Stockade in detail--the locality, the hospital, the dietary, and, in fact, all that relates to the condition of life in this region; reviewing at length the laws which regulate the animal economy, and judging of cause and effect with that spirit which Bacon calls the "_prudens quæstio_." In selecting new grounds for the habitations of human families, whether in large or limited numbers, particular care must always be observed, especially in warm climes, or where malarial influences are known to prevail. In the selection of places for the encampment of troops, the problem is still more difficult to treat, on account of the general dyscrasial condition of the soldier; and oftentimes far more skill and prudence are required than in the choosing of a field for battle. How many a noble regiment have we seen impaired in its effective strength, and robbed of its glorious future, by the injudicious encampment, where vain and ignorant officers have sacrificed the health and morale of their men to please their fanciful ideas as to military etiquette--the form of shelter, the position, and the regularity of the prescribed lines of encampment! In one of the last campaigns of Europe, when all the resources which modern wealth could afford were lavished with unsparing hand, there was a useless and preventible loss of life, that recalled the most disastrous epidemics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. War is one of the natural laws for the demolition of the human race, and we see the spirit of destruction silently at work among friends as well as foes. The supreme commands seem mysteriously to be placed in the hands of men who can cause the greatest devastation and sacrifice of life; who march their columns steadily to the deadly and murderous assault when there is no occasion for it; who encamp their troops in pestilential lowlands, when the healthy heights offer safer and better accommodations. "Nobilitas cum plebe perit, lateque vagatur ensis." II.