Mobile Advertiser & Register

June 16, 1861

Page 1

            SPIKING NEGROES- The New York Tribune, says the Richmond Dispatch, has an article recommending that the slaves taken by the Abolition soldiers from their masters should be put to hard work making batteries, and then makes this mysterious proposition:

            “Then, too, if the exigencies of the campaign require so summary a proceeding, these contraband bipeds might be destroyed- as property.- For example, when cannon are about to be abandoned to the enemy, a  prudent General causes them to be spiked, and so thoroughly spiked as to be forever worthless as cannon to the foe.  So, as to negroes who had served in the Union camp, if our army were compelled to let them fall into the enemy’s hands, they must first spike them, as property, so that they would be good for nothing to the foe.”

            Spiking negroes as they spike cannon!  What does the abolition wretch mean?  Does he propose to cut off the hands and feet, to maim and mutilate the slaves when they can no longer make use of them?  No crime is too horrid for the New York Tribune, and it would not surprise us if this is really what it means.