Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 27.djvu/278

 270 Southern Historical Society Papers.

papers. I have before me as' I write the editorial of Richard M. Smith, of the Richmond Sentinel, commenting upon it. If he hung any citizen of the Valley, their families and friends would have known it, and we would have heard of it. The only justification of punishment is to act as a deterrent; if it is secret it can have no such effect, and is criminal revenge. Now, during the time when Sheri- dan reports this carnival of crime, not over half a dozen of my men were taken prisoners; these were captured by a Captain Blazer (who was soon after annihilated by Richards) and sent to a Northern prison. Their names are given in Scott's Partisan Life, page 290. If Sheridan hung them there was a resurrection, for they returned home after the war, and I know some of them are living now. He also speaks of "exterminating" three of my officers. Now, during that time I lost but one officer Lieutenant Frank Fox. Captain Sam Chapman routed the 6th New York cavalry near Berry ville; Fox was severely wounded and left at a farm house. Afterward Torbert came along with his cavalry corps, put him in an ambulance, and sent him to Harper's Ferry, where he died of his wound. He was not hung. Sheridan was not as black as he painted himself. The object of retaliation is not revenge. Hall on International Lau\ says:

" Reprisal, or the punishment of one man for the acts of another, is a measure in itself so repugnant to justice, and when hasty or ex- cessive is so apt to increase rather than abate the irregularities of a war, that belligerents are universally considered to be bound not to resort to reprisals except under the pressure of absolute necessity, and then not by way of revenge, but only in cases and to the extent by which an enemy may be deterred from a repetition of his offence."

If I had not retaliated, the war in the Valley would have degene- rated into a massacre. We were called guerillas and bushwhackers. These should not be opprobious epithets, since the exploits of "the embattled farmers" at Concord and Lexington have been sung in Emerson's immortal ode. Now, while bushwhacking is perfectly legitimate war, and it is as fair to shoot from a bush as behind a stockade or an earthwork, no men in the Confederate army less de- serve these epithets than mine, if by them is meant a body of men who fought under cover and practiced tactics and stratagems not permitted by the rules of regular war. Sheridan certainly makes no such charge against us. A bushwhacker shoots under shelter with a long range gun; the Northern cavalry knew by experience that my