The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 3, March, 1862Various
History
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 3, March, 1862
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
depart, Captain LOWE informed him he was re-arrested!
By the influence of some of the soldiers, the prisoner succeeded
next day in effecting his escape. Traveling by night and
concealing himself by day, he finally reached the federal lines in
safety. His family were not permitted to follow him, and did not
succeed in eluding the vigilance of their enemies and joining him
until the middle of January. When a Union man escapes them, the
rebels are always opposed to the removal of his wife and children,
as, by retaining them, they hope to get the husband and father
again into their hands. And, as all communication by letter is cut
off, many a man, during the last six months, has stolen back to
see his family at the risk of his life, and lost it.
Dr. R. was the first man arrested in Ripley County; but LOWE
immediately began a lively persecution of suspected Unionists.
Some escaped with life, their enemies being satisfied with
scourging and plundering them, but scores were hung. LOWE'S
soldiers furnished and equipped themselves by robbing Union houses
and the country stores.
Many suspected Union men shielded themselves by denouncing others,
giving information of the property of others, and being forward in
insulting and quartering lawless soldiers upon defenceless
families. So that, Dr. R. states, there are created between
neighbors, all through that section, feuds which will never cease
to exist. Many a man has suffered family wrongs from his neighbor
which he thirsts to go back to revenge, which he swears yet to
revenge, and which he feels nothing but the blood of the offender
can revenge! And should peace be declared to-morrow, a social war
would still exist in Missouri!
People dwelling in the free States, where the schoolhouse is not
abolished, where the laws still live and restrain, can have no
conception of the state of society where the whole community has
returned suddenly to savage life; a life wherein the reaction from
a former restraint renders the viciously disposed far more
intensely barbarous than his red brother of the plain.
LOWE'S men, and all similarly recruited by order of ex-Governor
JACKSON, remained in service six months, and were to be paid in
State scrip. But as that was worthless, they never received
anything in rations, clothing, or money, but what they plundered
from their fellow-citizens. Many of these state rights soldiers
have since enlisted in the Confederate army; but Confederate paper
being fifty per cent. below par, and not rising, the legitimate
pay of the Southern soldier is likely to be small.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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