Valley Spirit

If ever there was a record which should condemn an Administration to perpetual infamy, it is the recently published list of our soldiers who perished at Andersonville. The list of Pennsylvanians for one year only, embraces over seventeen hundred names! Seventeen hundred of our best and bravest left to die by inches, without shelter, without hope, almost without food and why? Simply because the Administration, through that base tool, Beast Butler, refused to exchange prisoners unless the Confederate authorities would acknowlege the black soldier to be the equal of the white one; and because the "loyal" friends of the Administration would not permit an exchange, for fear that the Rebel army, when reinforced by the exchanged prisoners, would be too strong for our forces in the field, and they, the "loyal" men aforesaid, would have to stand their chance in another draft.

It is said that when Secretary Stanton was urged to affect an exchange, and thus save our poor fellows from starvation, he replied "I'll be d--d if I'll exchange fat, healthy men for skeletons!" Whether this statement is true or not, it is certain that our government could, at any time during the last two or three years of the war, have relieved our starving men. We had nearly twice as many prisoners as the Rebels had, and the fact that our men were left to perish by thousands when they might have been rescued, cannot be disproved. At one time the prisoners at Andersonville, with the consent of the Confederate authorities, sent four of their comrades to state their grievances to our Government; but these men were kept in New York, where they first landed, the furloughs permitting them to visit Washington were kept from them, and but for the persistent efforts of the reporters of the New York press, who visited the men and had their statement published, the Northern people would never have known anything about their arrival. The Government was willing that thousands of white men should starve, if negro equality could be established by the sacrifice.

Yet the Abolitionists, who aided and abetted Stanton, Lincoln & Co., in their acts of heartless cruelty, pretend to be the friends of the soldiers. That any soldier or any citizen who ever had a relative in a Rebel prison-pen, can endorse the policy of a party which has sacrificed thousands of our soldiers, by the most terrible of deaths, on the altar of negro equality, is strange indeed. Better to have had more drafts, more years of war, than to have thus condemned our brave boys to a lingering death by starvation and exposure.

To glance over the list of Pennsylvanians is enough to make one heart-sick. --What then must it be to look over the long list of thousands of names, representing every Northern State, in the grand total? Thousands of half-naked, freezing, starving men, lying upon the bare ground, under the open sky, perishing slowly but surely, while the shoddy "loyalists" reclined in their easy chairs, in the fullness of plenty! The dying soldier turning his dim and sunken eyes appealingly northward, as he murmurs, "Oh, ye who yet can save us have ye left us here to die?" while the bloated nigger-worshipper sips his wine in his gorgeously furnished mansion, and swears that there shall be no exchange until blacks and whites are declared equal; and when even that point is conceded by the Confederate government, declines an exchange because he fears that the rebel army will be too much strengthened by the prisoners in our hands! What did such men care for the soldiers? Absolutely nothing. They wished to use the bayonets and ballots of those in the field--the poor, dying men they were done with they could use them no longer; they might perish for aught they cared.

No nation can prosper while its rulers have so much blood and misery to answer for as has the Administration of the Abolitionists, Shame upon a government which would resort to such a mean, cruel, cowardly expedient to keep out of the rebel ranks a few thousands of men, as the starvation of twice that number of our soldiers, while a million or two of "loyal" men, who had never carried a musket, were clamoring for a "vigorous prosecution of the war;" and more shame upon the American people if they countenance such actions hereafter.

We publish, on our first page, an address from Hon. Wm. D. Kelley to his constituents, "the Union men of the Fourth Congressional District," in which that gentle man takes occasion to lay open to public view some of the beauties of character for moral and political honesty peculiar to the Hon. Simon Cameron, ex-Secretary of War. For a long time back trouble has been brewing in the "loyal" camp of the Department of Pennsylvania, which we are pleased to find, has at length broken out into open, irrepressible war. We are pleased at this outbreak of hostilities between the factions, for two reasons; one is the possible realization of the promise of the adage, "When thieves fall out honest men may get their due," the other, that the parties to the conflict will, doubtless, in its progress so ventilate the moral and political delinquencies of each other, as to open to public gaze the rascalities and corrupt schemes of prominent abolition leaders, so long and successfully practiced upon the people of the State. The rank and file of the "union" party will thus learn through strictly "loyal" channels, what a precious set of scamps have been ruling the roost for some years back in the Shoddy camp.

We discovered several weeks since, in the columns of our neighbor the Repository evidences of the approaching fray; that the opponents of the old Winnebago were bent on having an open, straight-up-and-down fight under the "black flag," neither giving or accepting quarter until the other should be completely "subjugated" or until it should be "Simon up" or "Simon down," never more to "wiggle-waggle."

The fight has commenced. It is a free fight. Simon has rallied his clan with his henchmen Berguer and Forney at his back, whilst his adversaries Curtin, McClure, Quay, with Kelley to the fore, are under a vow "to do or to die." The rank and file can fall in with either side as suits their inclinations, while the Democracy look on with a feeling of disgust mingled with amusement, not caring much which whips. Of the principal participants in the opening combat the Philadelpha Age says:

They are each apostates from their early and honest convictions. The are both aspiring and ambitious. Both love money and will venture neck deep into the dirty and disturbed stream of political management to obtain it. Thus kindred in qualities, they have hunted over the same ground, if not in company, and hence the tracks of the Winnebago chief are familiar to his brother. The experienced politiical manager when on the war path might tread on rock or travel in the stream to hide his footsteps, still his younger but not less expert associate would detect them and follow to the end.

As we said before, it is a matter of small consequence which whips; the one faction is about as dishonest as the other, and a disgusting expose of the political rascalities of each may be expected as the fight progresses.

THE President must by this time be convinced that Chief Justice Chase is organizing a regular campaign against the Administration. His stumping through the Southern States and the radical, revolutionary and incendiary speeches which he then delivered, are introvertible evidence of this fact. But, indeed, the Chief Justice has himself avowed his determination in his letters to his western friends informing them that the time had now come to organize a party upon the basis of universal and immediate negro suffrage. --Herald

The New York Herald justly characterizes the course of Chase as "radical, revolutionary and incendiary." It is one of the acts entirely without justification. He does not expect to convince the white people of the South that blacks ought to be allowed to vote--that is not his object. His remarks are not addressed to the whites, but to the blacks whom he harangues in such incendiary arguments as can only lead to trouble. He seems to be laboring to create an insurrection in the South rather than anything else.

If any white Southerner was to adopt similar language to the whites, to arouse their passions against the proposed policy of the Government, he would be denounced and arrested. Chase is in no danger because he advocates the claim of the negroes; he might be if he had a word to say in defense of the freedom of the white man. --Now when the blacks are idle and doubly destitute and uncontrollable on account of his newly found liberty, or because there is in our opinion no more disgraceful or dangerous thing than for the Chief Justice to be going around haranguing them with arguments and appeals, urging them to discontent and dissatisfaction; it really looks as if he were anxious to produce a collision between the two races, though perhaps his object is the more selfish one of catering to radical favor to receive a nomination for the Presidency in 1868.

THE Abolitionists say that the Democracy charge them with designing to make the negro equal to the white man, and then they try to be witty, as if they were charged with a design to make the negro physically, morally and intellectually equal to the white man. We beg leave to assure them that we are not opposed to this last exploit. If they will accomplish it, we pledge ourselves to vote for the next nomination they make President. It is the way to get rid of the whole difficulty. We never understood why the negro race was made at all, but if the Radicals will invent a plan to improve its capacity, so as to make the negro of equal capacity with the white man, we shall begin to see some reason in it. It was just to give these latter-day saints the opportunity to show how they could transform one race into another. We can only repeat what we have said, if the Radicals will give, by any invention, the higher qualities of the white man to the negro, we are for it. What we object to is the unnatural attempt to treat as equal in human institutions what God has made unequal.

Now that the people are beginning to feel the heavy burden of taxation that has been laid upon them, they naturally inquire more closely into the operation of the system, or rather want of system by which that burden has been imposed. The result of their inquiries lead to one inevitable conclusion--and that is, the great inequality and injustice of exempting Government bonds from State, municipal and county taxation. It amounts practically to the creation of the creditors of the government into a privileged class, whose wealth represented by the bonds they hold, buys their freedom from the local taxes, which under a just and impartial system, should be equally borne by all, in proportion to their means. How much of the wealth of the States has been absorbed in the National securities, may be easily estimated and that it will not be long before the bulk of them will pass into the hands of the rich, who can afford to hold them as an investment, may be taken for granted. The rottenness, therefore, of a scheme which operates so as to relieve from taxation the very individuals who, by reason of their riches should bear the largest proportion, is too plain to need demonstration. Apart from the manifest wrong done to the people at large, by such partial legislation, the question may well be raised, whether Congress did not exceed their powers when they deprived the States of the right which they have heretofore exercised as a necessary attribute to sovereignty in their domestic affairs, of equally taxing the wealth of their citizens respectively, in whatever shape invested.

The last Doylestown Democrat has an excellent article on this subject, which we copy, as an unanswerable argument against the odious species of favoriteism which releases the Government creditors, whose security is of the first class, from the payment of their just proportion of the public expenses.

Shall Government Bonds be Taxed.

This question will come up sooner or later before the Amercican people at the ballot box. The exemption of Government bonds from taxation for State, municipal and county purposes is a great wrong perpetrated upon the tax-payers generally. It is building up a privileged class, and relieves hundreds of millions of dollars of the wealth of the country from bearing any of the burdens of the Government. What right Congress has to make this distinction in favor of persons who loan their money to the Government, instead of individuals, we have not yet discovered. If I loan money to a farmer, and he gives me his bond or mortgage, it is taxed for State and county purposes. But if a neighbor lends his money to the United States, and receives a bond for its payment that bond is not liable to taxation for any purpose whatever. This is an unjust discrimination in favor of investments, and one which is at variance with our system of government. The Democratic doctrine is that people should pay for the support of the government according to their means; but the abolition Congress steps in and says one class shall be exempt from paying anything if they will only invest their money in a particular kind of securities. We ask our readers if this is always just and right? We say, no; it is class legislation that we must put an end to. It goes to build up an aristocracy, and thows an additional weight of taxation on the farmer and the landed interest.

The rich man who has $100,000 invested in government bonds pays neither State, County, Borough or School tax; while the little homestead of the hardworking mechanic, not worth more than 1,000, is taxed for all these purposes. The latter pays for repairing the street, lighting the lamp before the rich man's door, and the policeman who guards his property at night. So far as the capitalists are concerned they have already repudiated our State, County, and Municipal debts, for they bear none of the burdens. It is only necessary for Congress to exempt the farmer, mechanic, laboring man, and merchant when the repudiation will be complete. To tax these securities will no more prevent the government borrowing money than indiviuals, on bond and mortgage. There is no other country in the world where one half of the capital is exmpt from taxation.

Congress has perpetrated another wrong upon the tax-payer. Our State banks paid about half a million dollars a year tax into the State Treasury. These institutions Congress has abolished, and established National banks in their place, which are exempt from taxation for state purposes. --Therefore, the five hundred thousand dollars tax which the State banks paid must be raised from some other source. These great banking corporations are relieved from paying their share of the public burdens and the real and personal property of individuals are made to pay it for them. --We need not ask the question whether there is any injustice in this. The thing speaks for itself.

Messrs. Editors: --The question is daily asked, who will be our candidate for Legislature? But no one seems able to answer it.

Mr. Sharpe, our late representative, declares very positively that he is not and will not be a candidate for re-election. Therefore, it behooves the Democracy, of Franklin county, to cast about among its members, for a man who would be a suitable candidate, one that would add strength to our ticket and at the same time represent us well and ably. And such a man, many express the opinion, we find in Col. James B. Orr. And from the fact, well known, that he filled that position years ago with ability, integrity and fidelity--his services now are almost invaluable, in the procuration of an appropriation for border losses and damages sustained during the war. --The experience he has had in the halls of legislation would now be turned to some practical and beneficial account in this having the losses of our citizens paid. --Nothing, however, need be said in commendation, of one who has so long ago and so ably fought the battles of Truth and Democracy, and so often, well and faithfully represented us upon various and important occasions I think, I speak but the voice of the Democracy of Franklin county when, I say, let him be called.

CHAMBERSBURG

FROM THE ARMY IN TEXAS

Beaufort, Key West, Brazos Santiago--The Dry Tortugas--Franklin County Men well represented in the Army--Negro Soldiers--Provisions Cheap and Abundant--Gen. Sheridan--Mexicans--Bagdad--Maximilian's Soldiers--Climate, &c.

Correspondence of the VALLEY SPIRIT.

BRAZON SANTIAGO, TEXAS,
August, 1865.

Messrs. Editors:--A month has passed since I wrote you. I was then at Beaufort, S.C., ecstatic over shade trees. Embarked again I found the voyage to Texas more pleasant than that to South Carolina, for I had cast off sea-sickness and formed a more intimate acquaintance with the officers aboard. Only once we stopped, that at Key West Florida, waiting our turn to take on coal and water. We were detained three days, Key West is the one name for the town and the island. The town has a population of about 3000. The island is said to be seven miles long and nearly as many wide. I devoted the three days to the collection of sea shells, conch shells, starfish, (though I had to row to some of the neighboring islands a few miles off and wade too, for the last two named,) rambling amongst the cocoas, palmettos and olianders, crawling amongst the mangos, admiring the cactus, a hundred times larger than that of the North, studying the style of the Islanders, Spaniards, Scotchmen, Negroes, Yankees, &c., &c., of which the populace is made up. Fruits and nuts only, are the productions. Six days after leaving Key West, constantly steaming onward, we reached Brazos Santiago, Texas. I saw nothing new to note except the Dry Tortugas, where that worst class of all men, deserters, are receiving the penalty of their desertion. Two whales, at a distance of three or four hundred yards crossed our course, spouting water as they moved.

We were nineteen days on our voyage from Fortress Monroe, including five spent at Beaufort and Key West, distance nineteen hundred miles.

Brazos Santiago is a military post, near the mouth of the Rio Grande, about thrity five miles from Brownsville. Fortunately my regiment was one of the few on duty here, and I was not long in finding it. This limits my knowledge of Texas to this one point socially. I was assigned to duty with the regiment that best suited me, for two thirds of the officers are of my acquaintance, and were at Philadelphia and before Casey's Board with me. Two of them in turn were my instructors. Capt. Leib, once of Hamilton township, Franklin county, Lieut. Heck, of Spring Run reputation, and Lieut. Potter, nephew of A.K. Weir, our ex-Prothonotary, are here. Lieut Stewart, of Philadelphia, once of the Gray Reserves, a class mate is, I find, better acquainted in parts of Chambersburg than I. Perhaps a certain pair of blue eyes will see this.--Franklin county is largely represented in enlisted men. Mercersburg, Greencastle, Chambersburg and Green township are well represented. I reached here on the 15th ult., and was assigned to company "E." In answer to a query I learned that the Captain was detached as A.C.S. of brigade that there was no First Lieutenant; that the company was commanded by a Second Lieutenant of another company, and would soon leave it. In less than two days he was appointed an A.D.C., and the idea of "nothing to do" was dispelled. I found myself suddenly alone with a company whose rolls showed me 83 names. My verdancy mounted up before me like montains, and to add to my mortification I was put on guard the first day. How well I succeeded in guard mounting, I am not at liberty to say, for the truth might not be agreeable. After two weeks' duty with the company, I feel much more at ease, but with no less work. Be it said this is one of the best colored regiments here. The men are nearly all from the Northern States, and they are universally better fitted for soldiers than Southern men. The regiment is well disciplined under a forced rule. Nothing but a forced rule will do. You can't trust to their honor for the faithful performance of a duty, yet handled as they are, they are pretty good soldiers. They are taught to obey instantly any command of the commissioned officers, but detest more than white soldiers the commands of non-commissioned officers. Our regiment performs fatigue duty at the landing here. Your humble servant has been so many as four consecutive days in charge of fatigue, with so many as 175 men at one time. Under the direct supervision of white men they perform much more labor than so many white soldiers, but allowed to the inclination of their dispositions they do but poorly. They are very jealous of their own officers. From 5 P.M. to 1 A.M. on the night fatigue, one night I had fifty men from the First U.S.C. Cavalry, in the first five minutes I had to send one to the guard house for his disrespect and impudence; during the night ten deserted the fatigue. With a guard I proceeded to their camp and succeeded in apprehending six of them quietly quartered in their bunks. They did not like an infantry officer. Most of the non-commissioned officers are incompetent, and yet there are a few very good ones. Three of my five sergeants are good, the first sergeant writing a very fair hand.

Brazos Santiago is a sand bank. Three regiments are here. Up to this time I have not been able to see, or to find any one that has seen the beauties of Texas. There is not a tree or bush in all that part I have seen, and, except a few sea weeds, there is nothing grows. It may be a very fine country away from Brazos, but I have not seen it. Water, the name, that is all! Not a well or a spring is to be found. 'Tis true the Gulf of Mexico is only two or three hundred yards off, but salt water is not quite what I have been used to drinking.--Water from the Gulf is condensed by machinery, a process of steaming I have not studied yet, that is issued to us. Often the condenser is unfit for service, and the water is salt, and then too, our rations are cut down. At no time is there more than one gallon a day issued to each man, and it is sometimes reduced to half that; this includes the whole for cooking, drinking, &c. All orders for water are filled through the Quartermaster's Dept.; ponder the idea of making a requisition for water! What a relief I have experienced at times to get aboard a vessel to get a drink of water from the Rio Grande or Mississippi rivers without ice. If our Harrisburg water-mongers will bring us a little Susquehanna water in its primitive coolness, we will buy it, and forget their patriotism. Ice! what a word. At fabulous prices we can get it in Mexico. At present writing the condenser is in pretty good order, and after a night's cooling the water is fit for drinking. This water may be healthy but my experience must testify differently. But, like dying we get used to it. Substantials are not high; we buy fresh beef at six cents a pound.--Canned tomatoes, peaches, condensed milk &c., can be had at the commissary of subsistence, at about 40 cents a can.

This post is commanded by Brevet Brig. Gen. Draper. The appointment of officers from their regiments to positions on staff, reduces our working force considerably. The regiments at best [unclear] complement of officers. The last three or four times I appeared on dress parade I was the only officer on the line, the other companies appearing in charge of the first sergeants. What a dash the Adjutant and I cut advancing to the commanding officer at the close of parade.

I fear the 127th will exist but a short time yet; in less than one month the men mustered for one year will be discharged, I shall lose 25 men, some companies lose 60. Many of the officers contemplate leaving the service. Only about 300 three years' men remain. "Yours truly" mustered for three years from July 13. He does not intend staying so long, however, if he can get off in two years or less, though for the present I am content.

Gen. Sheridan was here four or five days ago; he stayed but a short time.

What disposition will finally be made of the 25th A.C. I cannot surmise. At present it is everywhere, Chaplain Wilhelm, of Fannettsburg, and Captain Hasinger, of Chambersburg, are one hundred and fifteen miles up the Rio Grande, at Edinburg with date of July 26. Lieut. Fickes, of Roxbury, is farther up--the former of the 45th and the latter of the 29th.

Quite a number of Mexicans are in the employ of the Quartermaster's department. My only effort to talk to one proved worse than vanity; he didn't speak the English language. They are a tall, lean, dark, ugly set of fellows, and are fond of ornament, like bells on their spurs, bead belts about their waists and long loggins of unfinished leather. The women wear their dresses wide, one third wider than they should, with waists only about five inches long.--When I first saw a gentleman from Mexico in his broad brimmed hat, and a lady in her wide, short-waisted dress, I looked on in holy horror. The custom is not solely Mexican, for persons who have been here for some time adopt it.

Eight miles from this, on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, is a town called Bagdad, where many of the officers go. I have not been there yet, but I have heard so much about it that I fancy I know all about it. For silver [and there are places where we can exchange greenbacks at the rate of sixty cents on a dollar, the people sell lower than our merchants North. For two dollars, we can buy a linen duster or a pair of linen pantaloons, or for about a dollar a gallon of claret. Max's soldiers are there and by our officers are represented as being far inferior to our colored soldiers--dirty, slothful men. The Mexicans too, particularly the females, have certainly never studied Northern etiquette, but they are Mexicans and I am willing that they remain Mexicans and retain Mexican habits. I am not a missionary to Mexico.

Before I left Chambersburg I was asked frequently to write if any opportunities offered for enterprising clerkships in the Q.M. or C.S. Department, pay from $75 to $150 a month and one ration. A few good clerks could find employment. This is only a small military post, and hardly affords the facilities for money making that Indianola, Corpus Christi, Brownsville and other towns would. The price of boarding at the hotel here is eight dollars per week. On the whole I think there are positions here worth more than Second Lieutenancies.

We get a mail here occasionally. Three days ago we got a large mail. I have lettes from Fannettsburg and the VALLEY SPIRIT of July 5, letters from Greencastle and Repository of the 12th. Two days before that I got letters dated July 4.

One of the companies of this regiment is on duty at [unclear] Chico. Among the ordnance is one 12 lb. smooth bore piece presented to the Republic of Texas with inscription to that effect.

I have not seen a thermometer since I came here, I am sure it is not as warm here as it is in Chambersburg. There is almost constantly a sea breeze floating, amounting to nearly a wind. But enough.

127-11-5

Doings of State Convention--No Punishment to be Imposed for Rebellion--A Petition Against Negro Troops--Jeff. Davis to be cared for.

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 17.
A special dispatch to the Times, from Jackson, Miss., to-day, says that in the State Convention an ordinance was reported ratifying all judicial decisions, judgments, decrees, contracts, sales, deeds and indictments, and also marriages made under the State law during the war.

An ordinance was adopted prohibiting the Legislature from passing any law imposing any civil disability or punishment or forfeiture of estate of any citizen engaged in the late war with the United States for his political opinion occasioned thereby. --Both ordinances passed first reading.

A memorial requesting the President not to garrison the State with negro troops was referred to General Osterhaus, the General in command.

A memorial was presented praying that steps be taken in behalf of Jeff. Davis and Governor Clark.

The Committee on Constitution made a report, recommending that such change be made in the Constitution as to hereafter prevent slavery or involuntary servitude, except upon legal authority for crime, and striking out all portions of the old Constitution relating to slavery.

An ordinance was also presented providing for the election of Congressmen, Governor, and other State officers, on the first Monday in October, to serve two years, the judicial and ministerial officers to hold office for the remainder of the unexprired term of their predecessors. This will cause all the elections to be held on the same day as before the passage of the act of secession.

A second committee was appointed, with instructions to present an ordinance ratifying all the acts of the officers of the State not made in aid of the recent war, and not inconsistent with the courts of the United States or Mississippi. Both reports will be adopted.