Memphis Daily Appeal CS
A "Fact Clearly Ascertained.”
From the Mobile Adviser and Register.}
"We shall deplore the necessity of retaliation, as adding greatly to the miseries of the war without advancing its objects; and, therefore, we shall act with great circumspection, and only upon facts clearly ascertained; but if it is our only means of compelling the observance of the usages of civilized warfare, we cannot hesitate to resort to it when the proper time arrives."—Secretary Randolph.
The quotation we have given above relates to the protection to be afforded to citizens of Missouri, but we do not know that the lives of Arkansians or Tennesseans or Virginians have less claim upon the care of the Confederate government than those of Missourians. A paragraph has been copied from one newspaper into another, headed "guerrillas hung," the reading which shows that it is not guerrillas at all that were hung, but quiet citizens, by Fitch, the man that started to relieve Curtis and couldn't do it. The facts are fully detailed in the following extract from the correspondence of the Chicago Tribune, dated "Gayoso House, Memphis, July 12th, 1862,” published in the Tribune of July 21st:
GENERAL FITCH RETALIATING.
It will be recollected that in a recent letter I stated that Gen. Fitch had captured seven of the prominent residents in the vicinity of St. Charles and held them as hostages for the good behaviour of guerrilla bands known to be on the river banks. For a time, after these men had been paraded upon the decks of the transports, dressed in Federal Uniforms and exposed to all the dangers of the common soldiers who kept them company, the rebels did not fire upon the steamers as they plied the stream above and below St. Charles. But subsequently, from heedlessness or recklessness, or because they had not been made acquainted with the general's promise, some guerrillas fired upon the Lexington last week, almost instantly killing her first engineer, who chanced to be sitting at an open port at the time. As good as his word the general immediately selected two of the most rabid rebels of the seven hostages, and hung them by the neck until dead, in sight of the Arkansas shore, and undoubtedly in view of their own neighbours and friends. It was a hard duty for a man of Gen. Fitch’s humane nature to perform. But he had given his word of honor that he would do it, and he was not the man to swerve to the right or to the left when duty called. Fair and timely warning had been given to the people all along the shores of White river where the boats had been, that the men would be hung should another Union soldier be shot by them, and it is not for any man to say that the sacrifice was uncalled for and unmerited. After a few of their best men have suffered the death penalty, perhaps the country will be aroused to the necessity of at least aiding the Union forces to rid the vicinity of their cut throats and midnight assassins.
We are anxious to know, and shall look earnestly for the action of the government that we may Know, whether our government considered the fact clearly ascertained that a Yankee general, who cannot find his way where fighting is to be done, has first resorted to the cowardly expedient of kidnapping Confederate citizens and making their bodies his shield against the bullets of an outraged and indignant people, and not finding that a sufficient protection has actually hung them.
This is far from being the first act of this kind—we mean the first act of downright murder, committed upon our citizen, not by lawless soldiers, but by the direct act, or under the authority of Yankee generals. If the soil of France or England were either to be invaded by the armies of the other, would France or England submit for a moment to such outrages upon all the laws of warfare and of humanity ? No, at the first intimation that such a deed had been perpetrated, Napoleon or Lord Palmerston—as the case might be—would speedily, if not clearly ascertain the fact, and ten lives would immediately atone for one, and that irrespective of any consideration how many prisoners the enemy might have in his hands.
Our people are impatient for a demonstrative assurance that the government of their own choice will protect them. It is but a day or two since our citizens flocked to look upon two gallant Arkansas regiments, which were pronounced the finest regiments that ever passed through Mobile. They were bound for a distant theatre of war. With what heart can they turn their backs upon their homes, knowing that their brothers and fathers are exposed to be murdered in their absence, and that no hand is stretched forth for their efficient protection?
We but speak the universal feeling of the Southern heart, when we say that they look to the Confederate authorities for prompt and signal RETRIBUTION.