Show CRUELTY AND TYRANNY Sherman in his memorable reply to i the Mayor of Atlanta when that official i begged him not to burn the city and i leave women and children without a t i cover said among other things War is It cruelty you cannot refine it At the i time this remark was written and under the peculiar circumstances with which he and his armies were surrounded the t laws of civilized warfare sanctioned the destruction of the city after due notice r r had been given to remove all noncombatants I noncom-batants and perhaps the hardest duty Shermans army ever performed was the destruction of that city bringing as I it did such suffering to hundreds of women and children who were t driven to the woods for shelter or subjected sub-jected to the chances of war by remaining remain-ing The oflicers commanding the men who obeyed the order were halfhearted ii in their work and the telling of experiences 1 experi-ences in the Posts of the Grand Army proves that the men shut their eyes to much that the order called for them to 4 see and many poor people were in consequence con-sequence spared the loss of their little t all It was a cruel performance but the i I attitude of Hood and his army rendered the destruction necessary Again when the Potomac Army lay atFalmouth many 11 desertions occurred daily owing to the rigors of the winter in shelter tents and the disheartened condition of the men When Hooker took command heat U he-at once ordered the shooting of all deserters and his order was carried out It was necessary to preserve the discipline discip-line of an army in the field and must be done When these men were brought I t but for execution they were placed in a i row sitting on their coffins blindfolded rwith u white patch pinned over their hearts and the whole army was mar shalled in a square to see the bloody > i work done The men selected to do the shooting did not know whether their guns held ball or blank cartridge and could not tell until after firing They did know that their erstwhile comrades had to die and the greatest kindness possible to them was to kill them instantly by taking tak-ing good aim and yet some of this firing party knew the condemned r I men but in justice to stern military discipline they were compelled to kill them It was cruel to the men composing the firing party Again the division Provost Pro-vost Marshal of the command to which the doomed men belonged l Was by virtue of his office stationed in a line with the men to be shot and if the bullets of the firing party failed to kill he the Provost Marshal must walk quickly up to the I writhing bodies > and dispatch them at once by shooting them through the heart i with a revolver ball which on this particular par-ticular occasion he had to do All of which was cruel on the men and the officer but the stern arm of military law was raised and there was no such word as refuse or the consequence would place the offender where the I criminals were Cruel as all of this was it was an absolute necessity but can that reason be assigned for the inhuman cruelties which the British army are daily called upon to inflict in these piping pip-ing times of peace on the starving people of Ireland We think not And yet one of Englands bra vest soldiers Sir Red velS Buller who has carved a name for himself him-self second to none of the heroes of the Soudan campaign is daily and hourly planning with all the power of military genius backed by all the terrors of men and money to throw starving people from their homes into the streets under the cursed law of evictions which now holds sway in that unhappy land The plea of the hungry baby at a breast too starved to afford it nourishment the uplifted up-lifted hands of the palsied and of crooning croon-ing age the heartrending cry of the mother for sick and famishing children all must not affect him He must draw up his wellfed and warmly clothed men in line before a hovel which is a disgrace to any people and which never knew what plenty meant within its walls and by force if necessary drive out to starve or freeze the unfortunate of his countrymen 1 country-men and women whose only crime is inherited in-herited poverty without a chance to improve im-prove their condition While we can view the duty of the soldier in times of war with equanimity and feel that he obeys a necessary order how cruel degrading and unmanly even unsoldierly does 3 the cursed work of this man and his men appear The peasantry fight him all they can and what right to the name of men or the sympathy of other men would they have if they did not do so Who of the most lawabiding among the American Amer-ican people wpuld see such acts done their wives mothers and children and not become as brutes and seek redress in blood Yet this is an everyday occurrence occur-rence and the boast of the bailiffs is that the starved remains of the dead are not heavy to carry to the potters field Can any conscientious man with the true promptings of a human heart blame the spasmodic attempts they make to check this cruel tyranny |