Search the Newspapers Browse Newspapers by Date Articles Indexed by Topic About the Newspapers Valley of the Shadow Home

Staunton Spectator: February 3, 1863 Go To Page : 1 | 2 |

Concerning the Valley.
(Column 1)

Summary: Item summarizes recent military activity in the Valley.

Full Text of Article:

We understand that Gen. Milroy has only 4,000 men at Winchester and 7 pieces of artillery, whereas we have in the Valley [illegible],000 men and 11 pieces of artillery, yet the enemy are allowed to remain unmolested, whilst they are practising the worst possible barbarities upon the people and destroying their property at their fiendish pleasure. Gen. Jones is no doubt a gentleman and a brave man, yet he does not effect much in the way of protecting the people of the Valley against the depredations of the enemy.

Having no personal acquaintance with him, and judging only from his conduct as Commanding officer we infer that he is a modest man, diffident of his capacity to devise and execute successful campaigns. What we need in the Valley is an able, active and brave commanding officer, who combines the capacity to plan with the energy to execute.

We learn that the enemy in Winchester are tearing down all the untenanted houses to make fuel of them, and by way of illustrating their professions of kindness to the colored people, destroyed their church. The Southern people build churches for the colored population, and the Yankees destory them. The Yankees pretend to be their friends, whilst they are really the only enemies they have. They are now trying to persuade the slaves to take up arms, when they know that every one, caught with arms in his hands, will certainly be hanged. They have no more love for the slave than the monkey had for the cat whose paw he used to scrape the roasted chestnuts from the hot embers.

Encouraging Signs
(Column 2)

Summary: Item alleges that the tide of the war is turning in favor of the South owing to dissillusion with the war in the North.

Full Text of Article:

"Coming events cast their shadows before," and the people of the North are beginning to realize the dread fact that they are resting under the penumbra of swift "coming events," which portend the failure of all their dire purposes against the South. They begin to see the sure evidences of a civil war in their own midst, if they persist in waging their diabolical warfare upon the South. They hear in the West the first mutterings of a storm, which will sweep the war party from power, or drown it in the blood shed in fratricidal strife. If Lincoln be wise, he will haul in his sails; if doomed, as we believe he is, to destruction, he will bid defiance to the coming storm, and will be ignominiously buried beneath the surges of popular wrath. Horace Greely, the white-coated philosopher of the New York Tribune, though blinded by abolitionism, is yet able to see that there is a terrible storm approaching.

In a speech recently delivered at the Cooper Institute, New York, he said:

"I think we have more danger to-day from conspiracies against the Union in the Free States than in the Slave; I think the danger is greater from these than from those."

In a recent issue of his paper, the "New York Tribune," Greely says:

"From the West we hear of schemes designed by the desperate and disaffected--conspiracies tending to fresh ruptures and the final overthrow of the Republic. Wicked men, even at the North are beginning openly and shamelessly to dally with disunion, and propose, since dislocation has come into fashion, to multiply the fragments of our institutions. All this is terrible. We can better afford to lose fifty fights than thus to weaken the morality of our cause. We can better afford to submit to invasion than thus to make disintegration familiar to our constituencies. We can better afford to let the slaveholding soldier bivouac in the Capitol than to be betrayed into negotiations which are full of danger, or to dally with compromises which, with their adoption, must precipitate us into unmitigated anarchy. Already we begin to hear of Western Confederacies. Already we have hints of new and tempting combinations, aiming at safe and convenient boundaries and the monopoly of internal navigation."

These fears of our enemies are not groundless, and we have reason to augur much good from them. A little more patience, and some more heroic fighting, and our independence will be accomplished.

Retaliation
(Column 4)

Summary: Item reports a letter sent from President Davis to President Lincoln informing him that certain officers of the Federal Army will be detained in the State Penitentiary until various Confederate officers are released.

Camp 4th Brigade
(Column 4)

Summary: Letter thanks the ladies of Augusta for donations.
(Names in announcement: Lewis Bumgardner, Lieut. Lambert, Mrs. C. W. Harman)

Mr. A. H. H. Stuart
(Column 5)

Summary: The Richmond Whig raises questions about Harman's alleged unethical conduct as Quartermaster.
(Names in announcement: A. H. H. Stuart, Col. Baldwin, Col. Harman)

Origin of Article: Richmond Whig

Full Text of Article:

[From the Richmond Whig]

We published an advertisement, and, we believe, all the papers in the State were requested to copy an article purporting to be from the Rockingham Register, covering the proceedings of a Court of Inquiry. The effect of that publication was to exhibit Mr. Stuart as a secret, anonymous and false accuser of an honest public functionary. The following letter from Colonel Baldwin gives the facts of the case, and presents Mr. Stuart in a light in which no gentleman and patriot need be ashamed to appear. We know nothing of Colonel Harman's official conduct, and the Court of Inquiry testifies with fullness and swift-footedness to his perfect integrity--and its judgment we have no disposition to call in question. But when public officers on limited salaries, in very short periods, amass unlimited fortunes--the fact will excite surprise and comment. Everything may be right--boundless wealth may be the legitimate reward of Quartermasters and Commissaries of an impoverished Government. We know nothing to the contrary.

The very unusual notoriety sought to be given to this publication, by its insertion in every paper in the State, would seem to mean something that does not meet the eye, but what it is we don't know.

CORRESPONDENCE

Staunton, January 2d, 1863.

Col. Jno. b. Baldwin--Dear Sir:--
I observed in the Examiner of yesterday, among the advertisements, an unfounded and ill-natured assault on me, purporting to be taken from an editorial of the Rockingham Register.

As you are personally cognizant of all the circumstances having any relation to my connection with the imputation upon Col. M. G. Harman, I will be obliged if you will give a brief statement of them for publication in the Examiner.

Very respectfully, yours,
ALEX. H. H. STUART.

House of Representatives,
January 24, 1863.

Hon. Alex. H. H. Stuart--Dear Sir:

I have received yours of the 22d instant, and have also seen the publication to which you refer.

The idea that you made an anonymous attack upon Col. M. G. Harman is simply absurd, or that you assailed him at all.

At the last session of Congress you sent me a private letter, in which you suggested the appointment of a Congressional committee to overhaul the Quartermaster and Commissary Departments of the army. In support of your suggestion you refer to a number of rumors affecting the administration of those departments in our community, and express the opinion that an investigation ought to be had, and the parties implicated either acquited or punished. You did not mention the name of any officer in connection with the rumors referred to, and you expressly stated that you had no personal knowledge of the truth of any of the charges.

In a conversation with the Quartermaster General on the subject, I mentioned your views to him, and showed him your letter. He asked me to leave the letter with him. I told him I had no authority to make any such use of it, as you had no personal knowledge of the matters mentioned by you, it would not be proper to use your name in connection with them. Colonel Myers then asked me to give him an extract containing a statement of the kind of rumors prevailing in our community and stated that he wished to use it in a way which would make it unnecessary to use your name.

With that understanding, I addressed him a note containing the extract desired. I was greatly surprised, after returning to Staunton, to find that Col. Myers had felt himself at liberty to send a copy of my note to each one of the numerous Quartermasters in our community.

I was at once called upon for the name of my correspondent, and by your direction I referred them to you. A correspondence between you and Col. M. G. Harman disclosed the fact that although you had not named him in your letter, he was, by rumor, implicated in some of the transactions referred to by you, and the consequence was that a Court of Inquiry was convened to investigate his transactions. I happened to know that when called upon to appear before the Court of Inquiry, you referred them to the correspondence to show them you had from the beginning disclaimed any personal knowledge on the subject, and you were now examined as a witness.

This was, so far as I know, your whole connection with the matter.

Respectfully,
Your obedient servant.
John B. Baldwin

[No Title]
(Column 5)

Summary: Correspondance between Baldwin and Stuart as to the charges of graft against Harman.
(Names in announcement: Col. Baldwin, A. H. H. Stuart, Col. Harman)

Religious Notice
(Column 6)

Summary: Notice of an upcoming religious event.
(Names in announcement: Rev. D. W. Arnold)

Tribute of Respect
(Column 6)

Summary: Death of Janie Tipping, a student at the Wesleyan female institute.
(Names in announcement: Janie Tipping)

Tribute of Respect
(Column 6)

Summary: Death of John Doom, a member of the West Augusta Guard.
(Names in announcement: John Doom)

Married
(Column 6)

Summary: Marriage of Luvenia McClure and Joshua Hall.
(Names in announcement: Rev. E. Smith, Joshua N. Hall, Luvenia McClure)

Died
(Column 6)

Summary: Death of Robert Guy.
(Names in announcement: Robert Guy)

Died
(Column 6)

Summary: Death of Charlotte Tate.
(Names in announcement: Charlotte Tate)

Headquarters 5th Va. Infantry
(Column 7)

Summary: Letter from 5th thanks ladies of Augusta for donations.
(Names in announcement: Eliza Kinney, M. J. Tate)

Trailer: J. H. S. Funk

State Salt
(Column 7)

Summary: Article lists salt distribution agents.
(Names in announcement: Henry Peck, John B. Hoge, P. N. Powell, Thomas N. Lindsey, Elijah Hogshead, John Newton, George A. Bruce, James N. Gentry, A. H. Ross, Samuel Paul, William Burnett)

[No Title]
(Column 7)

Summary: Case involving a will settlement in County Court.
(Names in announcement: George Engleman, Peter Engleman, Jacob Engleman, David Engleman, Michael Engleman)

[No Title]
(Column 7)

Summary: Case involving a dispute over a will.
(Names in announcement: Samuel Cupps, J. Givens Fulton, Cyrus Brows, Elizabeth Smith, Washington McMahon, William Carter, Nancy Carter)