OCR Text |
Show MURAT HALSTEAD. - In 1863 He Gives His Opinions of Grant and Shcrraun, Which -Are Not Favorable. From the Cleveland Plain-Dealer of September 28th, 1885. we take the following fol-lowing letter. In Ohio it is creating a great sensation, and is generally an unwelcome un-welcome document to the Republican party: office cincinnati jjaily and weekly Commercial, Fourth and Race Streets, Cincinnati, February 19th, 1863. Governor Gov-ernor Chase My Dear Sir : I wrote you a somewhat fantastic letter the other day. But that I suppose is not now strange. I write this morning to send you a copy of a private letter I have from our army in front of Vicksburg. It is from a close observer, ob-server, who endeavors to tell the truth. "There never was a more thoroughly disgusted, . disheartened, demoralized army than this is, and all because it is under such men as Grant and Sherman. Disease is decimating its ranks, and while hundreds of poor men are dying from : smallpox and every other conceiveable maladv. the medical department is af flicted with delirium tremens. . In Memphis Mem-phis smallpox patients are made to walk through the streets from camps to hospitals, hos-pitals, while drunken doctors ride from bar-rooms to .whorehouses in government ambulances. How is it that Grant, who was behind at Fort Henry, drunk - at Donelson, surprised and whipped at Shiloh and driven back from Oxford, Miss., is still in command?" Governor Chase, these things are true." Our noble army of the Mississippi is being be-ing wasted by the foolish, t DRUNKEN, STUPID GRANT. He can't organize or control or fight an army. I have no personal feeling about it, but I know he is an ass. There is not one among the whole list of rptired major-generals who is not Grant's superior. McClellan, Fremont, McDowell, Burnside, Franklin, even Pope or Sumner, Sum-ner, would be an improvement upon the present commander of the army of the Mississippi. Will you wake up some of these days and find we have no army of the Mississippi ? Then, there is awful discouragement at the way the FOOLISH OT,T TTirSTRR Who is thought to be a great man because be-cause he is not insane in his prejudices on the negro question, is doing.' In God's name, what is he waiting for? More reinforcements? re-inforcements? Pity he can't die and get out of the way, as Mitchell did. But to stop this sort of growling and come to something more practical. The army west and east is being weakened weak-ened hourly by desertions. It is the great evil. The thing needful to stop it is for the President to give each commander com-mander of departments power to SHOOT DESERTERS. They must be shot by the dozen. The President's -weak, puling, piddling hu-manitarianism hu-manitarianism is death and hell to the army. Can't you take him by the throat and KNOCK HIS HEAD AGAINST THE WALL Until he is brought to his senses on the war business? I do not speak wantonly when I say there are persons who would feel that it was doing God service TO KILL HIM If it were not feared that Hamlin is a bigger fool than he is. And yet the pitiful congress twaddles weekly in private caucus about political matters, as if a - LITTLE MORE NIGGER Would do everything. Why don't they pass your finance measure and the conscript con-script act and mind their own business? The proclamation to every truly loyal man in the West. It is a weapon in the hands of the Butternuts. Butter-nuts. If it is made a party test Vallan-digham Vallan-digham would be elected Governor of Ohio. Do not think I am talking at random. ran-dom. Alas ! I know what I am talking about. What is wanted : 1. A general for our army of the Mississippi. Mis-sissippi. . 2. Deserters shot by order of commanders command-ers of departments. . 3. Less dependence upon the nigger and more upon the white man. 4. The consolidation of the fragments of regiments. w5' JAf1ut.,nd trv IIeniT May and Wendell Phillips for treason. - 6. Suppress the New York Tribune and New York World. . M, Halstead. lhis letter is talked of everywhere and the Republicans are in despair. Halstead has been shouting and roaring and waving wav-ing the bloody shirt and wanting to fiht the war over again. He has been doin-the doin-the hardest kind of work for Sherman and I oraker and now this letter is made public convicting him of the most venomous abuse of Lincoln, Grant and the Union generals. .Halstead admits that he wrote the let- rA , , not much to saV about it. indeed, there is not much that can be said. |