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THE COUNTRYMAN.
tion, see these gentlemen, and write down
their names and the amounts they will
contribute. We will have a meeting on
Saturday, the 1st day of December, at
which time we wish to complete our or
ganization, by adopting a constitution and
electing officers. Then we will go to work
drilling, &c.—Wm. W. Turner; R. T.
Davis; Wm. O’Brien; C. D. Pearson;
R. B. Nisbet; R. A. Reid ; L. C. Dennis;
John S. Reid ; Robert Dennis.”
In looking over some loose papers, a few
days ago, we came across the foregoing
“Appeal,” and thinking it worthy of a
place among the archives of Putnam Coun
ty, we have inserted it here.
This Appeal was gotten up soon after
the election of Lincoln, and long before
Georgia seceded, or it was known she would
secede. The gentlemen who got it up de>»
serve credit for foreseeing “ the wrath to
come,” and doing their part to provide for
it. They r not only did not meet with the
success they deserved, but they met with
actual opposition. They had to meet jeers
and sneers in all directions. Notwithstand
ing this, they went forward in their patri
otic work, and the result is before the
country. The men who signed the Appeal
before us have, some of them, died upon
the battle field, some of them have been
shot over and over again, while some who
have escaped the enemy’s balls have be-
come the slower victims of disease con
tracted frcm service upon the field. Only
one member of the committee who pre
pared the Appeal has not yet gone into
actual service. Prevented from doiug so
by circumstances beyond his control, he
has nevertheless given his time and money
fully, freely, and unreservedly to five com
panies that have gone from Putnam Coun
ty’, and has rendered ar. amount of effec
tive service which has not been surpassed
by those who have actually gone upon the
field. This service has consisted of asssisting
to provide every necessary equipment and
comfort for those who have left the comforts of
home behind them. While but few have
equalled him, none have surpassed him in
this respect.
The committee uho prepared the Ap
peal before us make up an honored roll for
old Putnam. They were the men who
foresaw the coming storm, and who were
among the first to offer their bosoms as a
barrier against it. The names of Pearson,
of Davis, and of Dennis among the dead,
and of the balance of the committe among
the living, cau never be forgotten in old
Putnam.
The above Appeal, and the efforts in
connection with it, produced the first com
pany which went from this county, and
though it was originally contemplated to
call the company the Putnam Rifles, it was
finally called the Brown Rifles. R. T.
Davis finally went into service as Captain
of the Putnam Light Infantry, and C. D.
Pearson as 1st Lieutenant of the- Putnam
Volunteers. At the time the latter was
killed, he had succeeded to the captaincy,
through the resignation of Capt. Hitchcock.
—The first member of the committee wrote
the above Appeal.
Gen. Toombs in Hancock.
No. 2.
To the Confederate Tax Act, there are
objections, without a doubt. But no tax
law can be framed perfect in all its parts.
We would not debai Gen. Toombs,nor any
one else, of the privilege of pointing cut
the errors of any and all Acts. But, what
we object to, and what we consider hurt
ful to the republic, is for anyone to make a
speech an hour and a half long, and find
fault all the while, with the leading acts of
the administration, and commend nothing
that the administration has done. It is
certain that President Davis has commit
ted many errors, and this he sees, and ac
knowledges. He is human, and, therefore,
neither all-wise, nor all-powerful. At the
same time that proper criticism should not
fail to find President Davis, for his short
comings, we should not fail to commend
his virtues, and extend to him a generous
support, and strengthen his hands in the tre
mendous task that it is bis, and has been
his, to perform—a task scarcely equalled
by any other undertaking that mortal has
ever engaged in. George Washington nev
er had upon his hands such an undertaking
as that which weighs so heavily upon those
of Jefferson Davis.
With regard to State Endorsement of
Confederate bonds, we are not by any
means satisfied that, the policy is the best.
We do not consider it ruinous to our pros
pects to endorse these bonds, or fail to en
dorse them.
But if it is a measure proposed by our
government—if it is a measure of the ad
ministration, to endeavor to secure their
endorsement—we should give the proposi
tion a respectful consideration, criticise it
in no unkind or captious spirit, and then
act according to the best lights before us—
endorsing, if necessary—withholding en
dorsement, if necessary, with regret.
With reference to martial law—which
involves a suspension of habeas corpus,
liberty of speech, freedom of the press,
and in fact an abrogation of all liberty—
we consider it a very harsh remedy for real
or supposed evils, and one which should
be resorted to with extreme caution, if it
is ever necessary to resort to it at all. But
we have seen no fondness, on the part of
President Davis, for a resort to martial law.
On the contrary, he has shown the most
tender regard for individual and personal
liberty. He lias suppressed no newspaper,
nor is it his habit to imprison, or depiive
anyone of property without, due course of
law. His course towards the East Ten
nessee Tories, has been so lenient as to ex
cite censure. He let even such vipeis
as Johnson and Brownlow go uncrushed.
True a great many fantastic tricks have
been played in the sight of High Heaven
by picayune ignoramuses of brief authori
ty, with straps upon their shouldeis, which
should have been stripes upon their
backs. But such temporary folly, on the
part of petty officials, is inseperable from
the state of the country.
Gen. Toombs did not charge the admin
istration with any fondness for martial law,
but in discussing the measures of the gov
ernment, he discussed martial law, and left
the impression, by implication, that this
was one of the measures of policy adopt
ed by the administration.
Gen. Toombs was mild and kind in all
bis criticisms, but everything he said was
in opposition to the leading measures of
the government. Not one time did he tell
us what of good our government had ac
complished, and was accomplishing. He
drew no bright picture of the future. We
did not hear him hurling fierce denuncia
tions against the yankees, and Lincoln’s
despotism. On the contrary, he told us in
what our administration had failed, and of
the wrong measures which our government
had adopted. It was truly melancholy, in
one sense, for us to hear him. We could
but think, has not our government done
one solitary thing to commend itself to his
favor 1 Has our government been so weak,
so imbecile, so wrong-headed, as that it has
failed to come up, in one iota, to the le-
quirements of the great intellect which ad
dressed ns? These things occurred to us,
in sorrow—not in anger.
The last time we had heard Gen. Toombs
speak, before we heard him in Sparta, was
in one of his noble pbilipics against the
yankee government. He was very pow
erful in bringing about this revolution. He
is omnipotent to pull down. But can he