The Cass County Republican

Spirit of the Richmond Press.

Barbarous Treatment of Col. Dahlgren's Remains…Denunciations of the Rebel President and Cabinet—A War of ferocious Retaliation Recommended.

We make the following extracts from Richmond papers of recent date, exhibiting the most exasperated state of feeling in which they make terrible threats of vengeance against the unfortunate persons which fell into their hands. Their treatment of Col. Dahlgren's remains as ascribed below, was of the most brutal and inhuman character. and will be remembered and execrated to the latest day of American history :

COL. DAHLGREN'S BODY.

From the Richmond Examiner, March 8.

Dahlgren's body was boxed up at Walkerton on Sunday, and brought to Richmond, with the object, we understand, of its positive identification. and the establishment of the fact of the finding of the infamous documents upon it, all of which has been attested by witnesses.

Henceforth the name of Dahlgren is linked with eternal infamy, and in the years to come defenceless woman and innocent childhood will peruse, with a sense of shrinking horror, the story of Richmond's rescue from the midnight sack and ravage led by Dahlgren. It would seem something of the curse he came to bestow upon others lighted upon his own carcass, when it fell riddled by avenging Southern bullets. Stripped, robbed of every valuable, the fingers cut off for the sake of the diamond rings that encircled them. when the body was found by those sent to take charge of it, it was lying in a field, stark naked, with the exception of the stockings. Some humane persons had lifted the corpse from the pike, and thrown it over into the field, to save it from the hogs.

The artificial leg worn by Dahlgren was removed, and is now at General Elzey's headquarters. It is of most beautiful design and finish.

Yesterday afternoon the body was removed from the car that brought it to the York River Railroad depot and given to the spot of earth selected to receive it. Where that spot is no one but those concerned in its burial know or care to tell. It was a dog's burial without coffin, winding sheet or service.

Friends and relatives at the North need inquire no further: this is all they will know -he is buried a burial that befitted the mission upon which he came.

He has "swept through the city of Richmond" on a pine bier, and "written his name" on the scroll of infamy. instead of "on the hearts of his countrymen," never to be erased. He "asked the blessing of Almighty God" on his mission of rapine, murder and blood, and the Almighty cursed him instead.

DENUNCIATIONS OF THE REBEL PRESIDENT.

From the Richmond Sentinel. March 5.

If the Confederate capital has been in the closest danger of massacre and conflagration-if the President and Cabinet have run a serious risk of being hanged at their own doors, do we not owe it chiefly to the milk and water spirit in which this war has hitherto been conducted! We wonder if Mr. Davis is aware of what many very honest people begin to mutter and murmur; They say, can this man be saving up for himself, in case of the worst, a sort of plea" in mitigation of punishment, if the cause for which 150,000 of us have died, be borne down at last, Is this Christian meekness of his intended to save his own life?

They say what comfort are these fine sentiments, to the houseless families who have been driven from their homes in Tennessee or Virginia, when they find that our armies, even on the enemy's soil, are withheld from giving the invaders a taste of real war in their own quenched hearts and blazing barns?

For what have we set over us a government at all if it be not to protect us against our enemies; to avenge us of our enemies when need is; to uphold our cause in all its fulness and grandeur, and to keep our banner flying high? But this is lowering the cause and dragging the banner -through the dust; this is encouraging, inviting our invaders to ravage and pillage us at pleasure, sure that they will not be visited with the like in their turp.

A WAR OF FEROCIOUS RETALIATION RECOMMENDED.

From the Richmond Examiner, March 7.

Perhaps the people-perhaps even the government of the Confederate States-are now at length awakened to the true nature of the struggle in progress. We have been in the habit of regarding it as a war between nations; our enemies have all along looked upon it as a military execution upon a "mutinous crew." The merits by which their soldiers are desired to "write their names in ineffacable letters on their countrymen," are rushing at night upon a populous city, burning it down with turpentine and oakum "in soaked balls:" turning loose some thousands of ruffian prisoners, brutalized to the deepest degree by acquaintance with every horror of war, who have been confined on an island for a year, far from all means of indulging their strong sensual appetites--having this pandemonium to work their will on the unarmed citizens, on women, gentle and simple, on Richmond, and on all their property-in a word to sack with the usual accompaniments attending that operation--to kill Jeff. Davis and his mutinous crew, and slip away as they came.

If they can surprise by any sort or artifice, our kraal of Richmond, and deliver it over to the mercy of their troops, and hold in it one good carnival of lust and rapine, they will write their names in imperishable letters on the hearts of their countrymen. This situation of affairs was always well known to us; but it was doubted or denied by many Confederates of feeble brain. Do they believe it now, understand it now. that we have it under the hand of Federal officers charged with the task of breaking up this "hateful" den of Richmond, burning and robbing our houses, stripping and violating the virtuous and often refined Christian women of this place, shooting, stabbing, hanging the highest civil officers of the law, and massacring indiscriminately the population.

This is a wholesome kind of reflection for our own countrymen. We believe it will sting them. We think it highly probable that they will peremptorily demand of their government some practical, unmistakable assertion of our full determination to be treated as, honorable enemies and civilized people. And what-some may ask-what then would you have our Government to do ?-turn the war into a war of extermination ? Certainly ; certainly? It is already a war of extermination--of indiscriminate slaughter and plunder on the part of our enemies.

Their sparing the lives of prisoners and occasional exchanges, form but a temporary suspension of the rule, necessitated by our holding prisoners also; but the true animus, the authentic Yankee theory of the war, is manifest in the actual proceeding of our enemy wherever he has the power, and especially, and most signally, in this code of instructions for sack and massacre in Richmond. Our government owes it to its own army and to its own people, if it cannot at the moment retaliate such atrocities in kind, at least to bring to condign punishment the robbers who, in the guise of soldiers and under pretense of war, have been caught lurking about Richmond with their oakum balls and turpentine, and their written programme for murdering the chief magistrate and setting fire to all the houses till the city is burnt in a hundred places at once, and then inviting 8,000 blood-thirsty, lustful ruffians to gut the blazing mansions; rape their mistresses, and knock the masters in the head in the dreadful confusion.

But if we hang these wretches then the enemy will select an equal number for the gallows! Not while we hold sixteen thousand hostages. But if we shrink from that there is another alternative, and the only one left us-hanging and massacre all on one side. We can choose between the two: other choice there is none.