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we all hope that it will be enforced to the letter, and that the leading light of modern democracy, C. L. Vallandigham, will become a victim to its force. All hail, Burnside! as the honest general who dares to do right-who dares to prosecute the war with an earnest determination—who dares to punish traitors in the north! They may tell us the war is a failure-that the great Union is declining-that the gallant dead have died in vain-that they have closed their eyes in death, dishonored men ; they may say, as has been said by Miller, in the Illinois Legislative chamber, that the time will come when the surviving Union soldier will be ashamed to hold up his head and say he took a part in the war for the Union, but we catch the spirit of prophecy and say that the time will come when modern democracy as a party will be branded as a gigantic liar-that the time will come when the children of the soldiers and sailors who battled on land and sea for the republican idea, will, in the language of Grace Greenwood, date their rights to nobility back to grander battlefields than Agincourt or Bannockburn. Many a coat of arms in the future will have one sleeve hanging empty. We may picture to ourselves a group of noble young lads, some ten years hence, thus proudly accounting for their orphanage—an orphanage which the country should see to it should not become destitue. Says one, my father fell fighting with Wallace in the Wilderness of Shiloh; says another, my father fought with Hooker, when his guns flashed flame in midnight darkness over Lookout Mountain; another, my father suffered martyr

dom in Libby Prison; and another, my father was rocked to sleep beneath the waves in the iron cradle of the monitor. Then there will be hapless lads who will steal away and in the bitterness of soul will say, alas, for me! I have no such gloryings; my father was a rebel who fought against the flag of the Union; and there will be another class still more unfortunate, who will utter the pitying wail, oh! my God, help me! my father was a cowardly northern copperhead, who denounced the defenders of the Union as hirelings and vandals. Yes, and the time will come when the record of modern democracy in these years of war will be sought to be buried and consigned to the "dead past," when this treasonable faction will pander to those men who saved the Union when they sought its life. They will feign to drop tears over the graves of those they murdered, and utter hypocritical words of sympathy to the widows and orphans whom they insulted when the Republic was passing through the long night of war.

of the Union, mark the prophecy.

The following extract from a

Soldiers

communication

written by a soldier of the Seventh, may not be inappropriate to these pages:

CAMP SEVENTH ILL. VOL. INFANTRY,
CORINTH, MISS., MAY 1, 1863.

"While sitting here in my quarters near the once beautiful but now desolate city of Corinth, I have been thinking of my country's troubles, and of the

mad ambition of wicked men to ride to power over the ruins of the American Union; who are striving to subvert civil liberty, inaugurate a despotism and shut the gates of mercy upon down-trodden people. But when I look to the front where the Union armies are struggling as armies have scarcely ever struggled, struggling for the world's last and only hope, I feel hopeful, for I know all goes well there; no political strife troubles them, but all are of one mind, one aim, one faith and one hope. That mind is for the salvation of the Union-that aim is to transmit it unimpared to posterity-that faith is that this Union will be saved-saved from despotism-saved from slavery's black curse. That hope is that Omnipotence will soon smile upon these fields of blood, and sustain liberty with His heart and hand-will soon check the tide of war and stay this great sacrifice of human life, giving to us a peace—a happy, glorious, conquered peace. But when I look to its rear around the home of my childhood, and behold there so many comforting, and thereby giving aid to those who are waging the wicked war against the flag of my country, my heart is made sad, and I am prompted to exclaim oh! my country! my country! will she live? will she pass safely through this night of war? will the graves that have been made, the prayers that have been offered, and the tears that have been shed, be made, offered and shed in vain? We answer that with a united north the great republic of the west will live, and the future will see it

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standing peerless amid the grand galaxy of nations, fulfilling a destiny that will illumine with its magnificent splendor the whole world, and shed its blessings of peace and prosperity upon generations yet unborn.

"Loyal people, the appeal that goes up to you from this southland-that goes up from camp and grave, from hospital and prison pen, is couched in this language, Oh! stand firm; do not abandon the Union to the mad men; do not forsake liberty in its present great trial; do not cast a shade upon our last resting place; be true, oh! be true to the cause for which we gave our lives a willing sacrifice; listen not to the hair-splitting technicalities and specious sophistries of corrupt and unprincipled men. The soldiers have watched and are watching the northern traitors their course in Congress is rememberedhow they refused support to those brave men whose life-blood tinted the waters of the Potomac when rebel guns thundered over the heights of Arlington, sending echoes of treason away to Washington's tomb. We remember how they have slandered the brave men who died that this nation might not perish from the earth.”

To-day we were shown a letter from one of the lights of modern democracy in Logan County, urging a soldier to desert the hireling abolition army, and not disgrace his friends any longer, telling him that the war was a failure, and for him to return to the house of his friends. The reply was made, "I am a man, and no consideration offered by modern democ

racy can tempt me to desert the banner of freedom. What! disgrace my friends! I to-day disown all who would, like you, urge me to barter away my manhood. You tell me the war is a failure; you evidently base your judgment upon its prolongation. This does not discourage me; I remember that it took eight years to establish the first independence, but what would twenty years be in permanently establishing a government that may in time revolutionize the civilized world? When you and your traitor friends, conscience stricken and seared with crime and sin, shall, as an apt illustration of latter-day so-called democracy, go down to the grave, over your head should be written, 'Here sleeps a modern democrat; and may the winds of heaven never kiss his solitary abode, nor the worms feed upon that flesh that will in all coming time be the scorn and derision of mankind; may he not be permitted to come forth in the resurrection morning, but may he sleep on, unmourned and forgotten forever.' In conclusison, I would urge loyal men everywhere not to listen to the clamor for peace and compromise, for that means a withdrawal of the Union armies and to give up the struggle and acknowledge the independence of the south. From the commencement of the war up to the present time, we, the soldiers of Illinois, have helped to fight the great battles for the Union-we have seen our comrades bleed and die-we have trod in their heart's blood-have passed through many sleepless nights, watching and waiting, but

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