The Missouri massacre.
The article which we published yesterday with regard to this matter, was written a week ago, before any action had been taken by the authorities.
Its publication was unavoidably delayed until there had already appeared an order to
Gen. Holmes directing him to require the surrender of the murderer
McNeil, or in the event of refusal, to execute ten of the first officers of the enemy that should fall into his hands.
This order had escaped our notice; yet we do not know that it would have altered our opinion.
In the first place,
McNeil executed with every circumstance of horror, ten honest men for one man not known to be dead, and described by the Abolition papers as a spy. It would have been but even-handed justice to have meted out the exact measure with which he measured
Gen Holmes should have been ordered to execute ten Yankee officers for every man murdered by
McNeil.
In the second place, there should have been no contingency in the question.
Mrs. Glass, in her directions as to the mode of cooking a hare, says ‘"first of all catch a hare."’ She would hardly have given this sage direction had she been sure that every one who might wish to avail himself of her culinary skill had a hare ready caught for the experiment.
Gen. Holmes like the readers of
Mrs. Glass's book, is to ‘"catch his hare."’ In other words, he is to capture his officers before he can shoot them.
How if he should never catch them?
Is this damnable crime to remain forever unpunished?
It is understood that there are always officers, and a plenty of them in our hands.
Why not constantly retaliate upon them?
In the third place, as matters stand at present, nothing is easier than for the
Yankees to elude all punishment.
It will only be necessary to disavow the act, and then the precedent of the
Pope case may be pleaded — That miscreant when he set out on his foray upon the
Piedmont region published an
order by which he delivered up the whole country to pillage — He declared, in so many words, that he would not protect the inhabitants against murder, rape arson, and pillage.
In reply the
President issued an order subjecting his officers, when captured, to imprisonment, there to expect the punishment of banditti.
The march began, and the whole country become a scene of robbery murder, house burning and horrors of every description.
Finding that he was about to be annihilated by our army, the rascal withdrew his order.
Forthwith our retaliatory order was withdrawn, and all the officers we had captured dismissed.
Our order, it seems, was issued against
Pope's order The
order was the thing armed at not the
crimes committed under that order.
Our Government is a wonderful abstractionist, and contrived so completely to slip the necks of
Pope's officers out of the halter that they laughed at its fulminations.
It is clear enough that no retaliation will be made for the
Missouri massacre unless the army take the matter into its own hands.
We cannot and we do not suspect the
Government of any intention to palter with the people; yet persons less charitably disposed than we profess to be, will be sure to say that if there were any real intention to retaliate upon the enemy it should have been done at once.
There was no occasion for any other order than one to the proper officer.
commanding him to select a certain number of Yankee officers of the highest rank in our hands, and to execute them with the proper formalities.--There is no other means left us to deal with an enemy who is deaf alike to the voice of reason and of humanity.
The beast
Butler, but the other day, when he was informed that
Gen. Taylor would retaliate for the barbarous act of burning
Bayou Sara, replied that in that event he should go on hanging among the citizens of New Orleans until he had satisfied himself.
He would not have dared to make such a threat had he not believed that the Confederate Government had not the hardihood to retaliate for anything he might do
