A. correspondence between General Sherman and General Wade Hampton has
arisen from the asserted practice of the Confederate troops killing Federal foragers after capture, and leaving their bodies labelled "Death to foragers" to deter others. General Sherman ordered retaliation, and told General Wade Hampton that he pro- foundly regretted all violence, that the right to forage was one of the recognized rights of war, that he wished to get the needful food by requisition, but could find no civil authorities, and that his soldiers in doing it for themselves had been captured and then murdered as warnings. General Wade Hampton replies bitterly of course, denying all knowledge of the alleged murders, not in the tone of one disbelieving the statement, but rather of one justifying such extreme measures. The English press has written very strongly against General Sherman, and no doubt all such measures of retaliation on either side are to the last degree shocking to humanity, but Wellington repeatedly threatened the same thing, and Generals in war conceive that they owe it to their army to prevent any =soldierly conduct on the other side at any cost. Sherman's orders and general policy have been admitted by the South again and again to have been singularly humane.
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