2

Rebel Forbearance.

The "loyal" organ takes us to task for "manifesting our rebel instincts" in giving credit to Lee's men for the forbearance they have displayed, and the general respect for private property shown by them during their raids into Pennsylvania and Maryland. If they should imitate the barbarities of Higginson in Florida and Montgomery on the Coosaw, with what savage indignation would the radical press denounce their inhuman conduct. The Chattanooga Rebel of the 3d instant, counsels retaliation by the confederates by burning and desolation, and from a reading of its article we may judge of the diabolical spirit which prompts such a system of warfare. We trust Gen. Gilmore, in the department of the south, will properly rebuke and punish jayhawking and freebooting there, and teach the Massachusetts clergyman and Kansas guerrilla that robbery and arson are crimes in war as well as in peace.

The fact cannot be denied, and it is not the part of good sense or sound loyalty to attempt to conceal the truth, that the conduct of the rebel invaders of Pennsylvania has, in the main, been extremely praiseworthy so far as their treatment of private property is concerned. And if the "only original Jacobs's" of loyalty choose to call us disloyal because we do not denounce them as robbers, murderers and brigands, so long as they behave as they are doing on our soil, we shall neither complain or be surprised. We sincerely regret that the conduct of our troops, when the relative situation was reversed, has frequently been far more reprehensible. Had it not been so, there would be far less bitterness against the "federals" amongst the southern people to-day.