maraudings, have traversed every by-path and marked every important
point.

The second prominent characteristic of guerrilla warfare, is the
license it gives to take by force from supposed enemies or neutrals,
horses, cash, munitions of war, and, in short, any thing which can
aid the party for which he fights; _with the promise of full pay for
whatever he brings off to his head-quarters_. This is the essential
principle of the system, giving it its power and destructiveness. As
it displaces patriotism from the breast of the fighter, and
substitutes in its room the desire for plunder, the men thus engaged
become highway robbers in organized and authorized bands. Nor do
guerrilla bands long confine their depredations to known enemies.
Wherever a good horse can be found, wherever silver plate is
supposed to be secreted, wherever money might be expected, there
they concentrate and rob without inquiry as to the character of the
owner. Hence the system is destructive to all confidence, and to the
safety of even innocent and defenseless females.

It requires no prophet's ken to foresee that the Confederate
authorities have commenced a system which will utterly demoralize
all engaged in it; destroy the peace, and endanger the safety of
non-combatants, and eventually reduce to ruin and anarchy the whole
community over which these bands of robbers have their range.

This process has already commenced, and if the loyal troops were
withdrawn to-day from all Secessia, and the South allowed its
independence, the people would find themselves in the hands of
bandits to harass and plunder for months to come, and would have
long scores of wrongs to right, which have been inflicted upon