The Black Flag is Raised

This entry is from the Memphis Daily Appeal, December 4, 1861.  This was one approach towards the war that was being advocated by some Confederates.

A call to raise the "black flag" in Memphis; the rhetoric and logic of war  We unhesitatingly say that the cause of justice and the cause of humanity itself, demands that the black flag shall be unfurled on every battlefield-that extermination and death shall be proclaimed against the hellish miscreants who persist in polluting our soil with their crimes. We will stop the effusion of blood, we will arrest the horrors of war, by terrific slaughter of the foe, by examples of overwhelming and unsparing vengeance. When Olive Cromwell massacred the garrison at Drogheda, suffering not a man to escape, he justified it on the ground that his object was to bring the war to a close-to stop the effusion of blood-and, that it was, therefore, a merciful act on his part. The South can afford no longer to trifle-she must strike the most fearful blows-the war-cry of extermination must be raised.