'Once begun,' said he, 'I do not know where
such a measure would stop.' He said he could not take men out and kill
them in cold blood for what was done by others. If he could get hold of
the persons who were guilty of killing the colored prisoners in cold
blood, the case would be different, but he could not kill the innocent
for the guilty."
Amid the sanguinary reports and crowding events that held public
attention for a year, from the Wilderness to Appomattox, the Fort Pillow
affair was forgotten, not only by the cabinet, but by the country.
The related subjects of emancipation and negro soldiers would doubtless
have been discussed with much more passion and friction, had not public
thought been largely occupied during the year 1863 by the enactment of
the conscription law and the enforcement of the draft. In the hard
stress of politics and war during the years 1861 and 1862, the popular
enthusiasm with which the free States responded to the President's call
to put down the rebellion by force of arms had become measurably
exhausted. The heavy military reverses which attended the failure of
McClellan's campaign against Richmond, Pope's defeat at the second Bull
Run, McClellan's neglect to follow up the drawn battle of Antietam with
energetic operations, the gradual change of early Western victories to a
cessation of all effort to open the Mississippi, and the scattering of
the Western forces to the spiritless routine of repairing and guarding
long railroad lines, all operated together practically to stop
volunteering and enlistment by the end of 1862.
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