June 6, 1863, The Charleston Mercury
The Richmond Whig remarks that the expulsion from the lines of the enemy of citizens suspected of loyalty to the States in which they live, pursued on so large a scale by BANKS in Louisiana, and in less degree in other States by minor myrmidons of the Despotism at Washington, reveals a systematic purpose of the enemy to change the population of whatever portion of our territory they may occupy, by the deportation of all whose principles are inflexible, and the overawing and subsidizing of the remainder. The vacancies left by those who are removed are to be filled by, and their property distributed among, Yankee squatters. In this way, it is expected that voters enough can be obtained to elect State officers and Federal representatives of their own, and to decide in favor of adherence to the United States. They may not hope by this mode to subdue the South, or even, perhaps, to recover any of the States, but they expect to make Free Cities, after the German plan, of New Orleans and other principal commercial towns, and thereby secure advantages of trade to themselves, while, by the same means, they would hamper and embarrass us. They may hope, too, in this policy, to have the countenance and cooperation of European Powers. The scheme is ingenious and characteristic. It brings into play the dominant attribute and faculty of the Yankee nature – craftiness. It reinforces the inadequacy of their arms with the powerful aid of their cunning.
The attempt to carry out this plan is in itself scandalously cruel and barbarous. It subjects its victims to sufferings never inflicted in civilized warfare upon non-combatants – the innocent and helpless– whose condition would not appeal in vain to any other than the merciless heart of the Yankee. But, where cunning is, there is always cowardice; and where cowardice, cruelty. The torture of the aged is pastime; the cries of children and the tears of women music and balm to the vile libels on manhood who practice these enormities. They boldly avow the purpose of destroying our industrial system and bringing on famine and starvation – and, in accordance with this avowal, they carry off our laborers, burn fences, mills, factories and bridges, steal horses and mules, destroy the implements of husbandry, slay milch cattle and brood stock, trample down growing crops, pillage or fire granaries, and by every possible appliance and agency of destruction attempt to carry out their fiendish design. Failing in courage, failing in resources and power of their own, they have impiously sought to make an ally of Nature, and have let loose fire and water in unnatural partnership for our destruction. The generous mother of us all refused to do their hellish work – but are they less guilty? Shall we treat such an enemy with forbearance and clemency? Shall we make war upon such a people after the style of a tournament only or a fencing school! Are foils, and stuffed gloves, and friendly buffetings, and magnanimous forgiveness, and chivalrous forbearance, for such a race! We hope we have profited something from experience – learned something from the relentless lessons of the foe, and that we are beginning to realize our situation, to appreciate our enemy, and to understand the only sort of warfare that can be waged to advantage. We are able to send expeditions of cavalry into their country that need not stop short of Canada. On their route nothing of value should be spared – not a city, not a town or village, not a factory, mill or workshop, not a residence, storehouse or barn, not a railroad, mine, bridge, telegraph – nothing whatever, the destruction of which would tend to break up their industrial system. Any other sort of raid only injures us by loss of horses and men, while the little injury done the enemy benefits them by securing new contracts and jobs.
When we are ready to apply this sort of a counter-irritant, we may count on drawing off the robbers who now occupy so much of our territory and hold down so large a portion of our population. They will have to give up their scheme of appropriating our property and colonizing the South, under the necessity of looking to the defence of their own property and the protection of their own homes. This withdrawal, if followed by a vigorous and determined assault upon whatever armies remain upon our soil; and these assaults (if it were possible to hope that our authorities had used their opportunities to secure war vessels abroad), seconded by naval attacks upon their exposed coast cities, would be the sort of war that would respond to the hopes of the people, and that would promise a speedy and acceptable end to the effort to subjugate us.