The Emporia News

From the Richmond Whig.

THE BELT OF DESOLATION.

Day by day the track of the destroyer
becomes broader. Two-thirds of Virginia,
two-thirds of Tennessee, the coasts of North
and South Carolina, part of Georgia, nearly
all of Florida, Northern Mississippi, Western
and Southern Louisiana, a great part of
Arkansas and Missouri, have already been
laid waste, and every hour brings tidings
of fresh destruction. Dispatches of Saturday
informed us that the enemy had destroyed
a million dollars' worth of property on the
Combahee, and stolen a thousand negroes;
it was but a few days ago that they ravaged
the county of Matthews, in this State, and
even while we write tidings come to us that
they are burning private houses, and destroying
every grain of corn they can lay their hands
on in the counties of King and Queen.

Enough has been said of the barbarism
of this mode of warfare, and too much has
to be confessed of the entire impunity with
which it is carried on. Our outcries and
our admission of the weakness or the imbecility
of our forces in the field but add to the
hellish joy of the foe, without stimulating
troops, Government or people, to the pitch
of retributive vengeance. The belt of desolation
widens hourly, nor is there much prospect
of an abatement of the evil. Citizens complain
of the Government, which in turn complains
of the citizens. Meantime common inquiry
is made as to the existence and present whereabouts
of the organized forces of the Confederacy.

We may be sure that this state of things
will continue so long as the war is waged
exclusively on Confederate soil. Every day
the enemy remains in our territory will add
to the width of the belt of desolation, and
they who now fancy themselves out of danger
will soon discover their mistake. If a thousand
Yankee cavalry can ride entirely through the
State of Mississippi without molestation, what
is to hinder a like number from going through
Virginia, North and South Carolina, to Port
Royal? Certainly, unarmed and unorganized
citizens will not hinder them.

The belt of desolation serves many purposes
of the Yankee nation. It opens a way to free
labor and Northern settlers; it diminishes
production and contracts Southern population
within limits inadequate to their support; it
prepares a place for Yankee emigration if
peace on the basis of separation is declared.
But this is not all. It answers the purpose
of war as well as peace, by interposing a
country destitute of supplies between our
own and the Yankee border. Thus it is a
safeguard against invasion. If Lee would
advance, he must move thro' a desert, dragging
immense trains of food behind him. The case
is the same with Bragg, with Johnston, with
Price.

Indeed, we hear that Price will find it
difficult, if not impossible, to enter Missouri.
In front of all our large armies lies a waste,
where there is food for neither man nor
beast. Girded by a belt of desolation, the
North is safe from invasion; the broader the
belt the greater its security. As the months
wane, and the years roll on, the South, unless
something be done, will become, in the language
of Scripture, the abomination of desolation. We
believe that something will be done—the necessity
of the case demands it imperatively; would that
we could be sure that it will be done speedily.
The cup can be returned to the lips of the North,
drugged with ten-fold bitterness. Mercy to ourselves
demands this act of retributive justice to them.