scampered back. After this, they appeared to have become afraid to venture out again, and the Patrick Henry had to then remain satisfied with peppering the frigates, which she did, it is said, in a masterly and beautiful manner. It is said by those who witnessed the entire engagement, that the Patrick Henry was handled in a thoroughly seamanlike manner by those on board, and her guns were worked to perfection. She played upon the enemy mostly with her after-gun while lying off Newport News, and would occasionally back up towards the enemy when she would drift out of range of her mark. It is supposed she used her aftergun, in order to keep the best position to prevent being outflanked, and to keep the enemy from having a chance at her broadside. We are unable to say what damage was done to either party in this engagement, and, so far as the Federal vessels are concerned, we shall not be able to ascertain; but our informant tells us it is his opinion that the Patrick Henry is entirely unharmed, notwithstanding she was the single object of attack from the four gunboats, the two frgates, and four guns from the fort at Newport News. After the firing ceased, she passed up James River to her position, apparently as fresh as a lark. Doc. 210. MR. SAULSBURY'S RESOLUTIONS. OFFERED IN THE U. S. SEÑATE, DEC. 4, 1861. WHEREAS, the people of the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee, are in revolt against the Constitutional Government of the United States, and have assumed to secede from the Federal Union, to form an independent Government, under the name of the "Confederate States of America; " and Whereas, the Congress of the United States, approving the sentiments of the President in his annual message, that "the Union must be preserved," and hence all indispensable means must be employed; and believing that kind and fraternal feeling between the people of all the States is indispensable to the maintenance of a happy and prosperous Union, and being willing to manifest such feeling on their part to them, and that peace may be restored to a distracted country, and the Union and Constitution be preserved and maintained, and inviting the cooperation of the people of the aforesaid States in the accomplishment of this object-it is desirable to each and all-do resolve as follows: Resolved, That Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, Roger B. Taney, Edward Everett, Geo. M. Dallas, Thomas M. Ewing, Horace Binney, Reverdy Johnson, John J. Crittenden, George E. Pugh and Richard W. Thompson be, and they are hereby, appointed Commissioners on the part of Congress, to confer with a like num ber of Commissioners, to be appointed by the States aforesaid, for the preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the Constitution; and that they report the result of said conference of Congress for approval or rejection. Resolved, That upon the appointment of Commissioners, as hereby invited by said States, and upon the meeting of the joint commission for the purpose of conference as aforesaid, active hostilities shall cease and be suspended; and shall not be renewed unless said commission shall be unable to agree, or in case of an agreement by them, said agreement shall be rejected either by Congress or by the aforesaid States. REBEL OPINIONS OF THE RESOLUTIONS. Our readers will find in our columns to-day, the preamble and resolutions of Mr. Saulsbury, of Delaware, offered in the Senate of the United States, proposing to put an end to the revolt, by appointing commissioners to confer with commissioners to be appointed by the Confederate States, "for the preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the Constitution." Here is reconstruction proposed, more formidable, perhaps, to the liberties and the lasting peace of the Confederate States, than cannon and bayonets. As the action proposed is by the Congress of the United States, it must be met, we presume, by the action of the Congress of the Confederate States. The Congress of the Confederate States will never, we presume, appoint any commissioners to meet commissioners from the United States, "for the preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the Constitution." They represent a confederacy of independent States. As the representatives of an independent people, they can authorize no conference with the United States, on the assumption that they are a portion of the United States. When propositions to treat for peace come to us, as an independent people, we can, with propriety, listen to them. But in any other form, they should be rejected with contempt, since, by our acquiescence, they would convey an acknowl edgment of guilt in asserting our independence. But laying such views aside, we do not think that the Confederate States can make a peace with the United States, which will secure to them the frontier States of Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland; and without these States in our Confederacy, any treaty of peace with the United States, surrendering them, would be disgraceful, and, perhaps, ruinous in the future, to the Confederate States. Slavery would speedily be abolished in them, when left a portion of the United States. Every principle of policy and of honor requires that we should fight the war out to the bitter end, before we surrender a single slave State to the brutal fanaticism of the North. We have no fear of the result in the war in which we are engaged. But a policy which war and rapine and murder cannot force upon us, may be fastened upon us by the cunning slime of diplomacy. We have vanquished our enemies in every pitched battle; and now, insulted England and interested Europe, may come to our aid. It is a good time for Yankee diplomacy to crave fraternity, and reconstruct our dependency. Yet we do not believe that these resolutions will, at the present time, pass the Congress of the United States. Matters are not yet ripe for peace on either side. -Charleston Mercury, Dec. 12. A PEACE FROM YANKEEDOM. We see by the proceedings of the Federal Congress, that in the Senate on the 4th of Dec. Mr. Saulsbury offered a joint resolution, that Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, Roger B. Taney, Edward Everett, George M. Dallas, Thomas M. Ewing, Horace Binney, Reverdy Johnson, John J. Crittenden, Geo. E. Pugh, and Richard W. Thompson, be appointed commissioners on the part of Congress to confer with the commission appointed by the "so-called Confederate States," "for the preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the Constitution." GEN. PHELPS' PROCLAMATION. HEAD-QUARTErs Middlesex Brigade, SHIP ISLAND, Mississippi, December 4, 1881. To the loyal citizens of the Southwest: Without any desire of my own, but contrary to my private inclinations, I again find myself among you as a military officer of the Government. A proper respect for my fellow-countrymen renders it not out of place that I should make known to you the motives and principles by which my command will be governed. We believe that every State that has been admitted as a slave State into the Union since the adoption of the Constitution, has been admitted in direct violation of that Constitution. We conceive that this is a pretty bright idea on the part of the Yankees; but we are at a loss to fully appreciate the compliment of their call on us to maintain an instrument (the Constitution) that they have long since smashed into smithers, unless it is that there is a party among them that still believe in the superior We believe that the slave States which exstatesmanship of our Southern leaders, and they isted, as such, at the adoption of our Constituwish to get them to fix it up again for their tion, are, by becoming parties to that compact, especial benefit, seeing its destruction has ena-under the highest obligations of honor and bled the Autocrat to trample rather severely morality to abolish slavery. upon their liberties. We would recommend to those "Constitution" cobblers the peculiar virtue of "Spalding glue" for their purpose, with the assurance that they will find quite as much virtue in that article as they would likely find in the combined wisdom of all the statesmen in the world, for the repair and preservation of an instrument that has been so badly rent as what was once the "Constitution of the United States." As for their Union, we would remind them that it is an excellent Union for them, being composed of such despicable God-forsaken scoundrels as were never raked together in one parcel since the world has been a world. It is now a perfect dogeat-dog conglomeration of negro thieves and pirates; and as they have got rid of the honest people of the South, they are now at liberty to go it with a rush." May be they would like a cessation of hostilities for a time-during the palaver of the commissioners, as another resolution proposes-in order to get an opportunity to accomplish some object they have in view. But possibly our people have had enough of such dodges in the Crittenden Compromise schemes, which were afterwards proved to be but means used to gain time on their part. If they desire peace, they have but to withdraw their troops from our soil, and let us alone, It is our conviction that monopolies are as destructive, as competition is conservative of the principles and vitalities of republican government; that slave labor is a monopoly which excludes free labor and competition; that slaves are kept in comparative idleness and ease in a fertile half of our arable national territory, while free white laborers, constantly augmenting in numbers from Europe, are confined to the other half, and are often distressed by want; that the free labor of the North has more need of expansion into the Southern States, from which it is virtually excluded, than slavery had into Texas in 1846; that free labor is essential to free institutions; that these institutions are naturally better adapted and more congenial to the Anglo-Saxon race than are the despotic tendencies of slavery; and, finally, that the dominant political principles of this North American Continent, so long as the Caucasian race continues to flow in upon us from Europe, must needs be that of free institutions and free government. Any obstructions to that form of government in the United States, must inevitably be attended with discord and war. Slavery, from the condition of a universally recognized social and moral evil, has become at length a political institution, demanding political recognition. It demands rights, to the expulsion of those rights which are insured to us by the Constitution; and we must choose between them which we will have, for we cannot have both. The Constitution was made for freemen, not for slaves. Slavery, as a social evil, might for a time be tolerated and endured; but as a political institution, it becomes imperious and exacting, controlling, like a dread necessity, all whom circumstances have compelled to live under its sway, hampering their action, and thus impeding our national progress. As a political institution, it could exist as a co-ordinate part only of two forms of government, viz., the despotic and the free; and it could exist under a free government only when public sentiment, in the most unrestricted exercise of a robust freedom, leading to extravagance and licentiousness, had swayed the thoughts and habits of the people beyond the bounds and limits of their own moderate constitutional provisions. It could exist under a free government only where the people, in a period of unreasoning extravagance, had permitted popular clamor to overcome public reason, and had attempted the impossibility of setting up permanently, as a political institution, a social evil which is opposed to moral law. By reverting to the history of the past, we find that one of the most destructive wars on record that of the French Revolution-was originated by the attempt to give political character to an institution which was not susceptible of political character. The Church, by being endowed with political power, with its convents, its schools, its immense landed wealth, its associations, secret and open, became the ruling power of the State, and thus occasioned a war of more strife and bloodshed, probably, than any other war which has desolated the earth. Slavery is still less susceptible of political character than was the Church. It is as fit at this moment for the lumber-room of the past as were, in 1793, the landed wealth, the exclusive privilege, etc., of the Catholic Church in France. It behooves us to consider, as a self-governing people, bred and reared and practiced in the habits of self-government, whether we cannot, whether we ought not, revolutionize slavery out of existence, without the necessity of a conflict of arms like that of the French Revolution. Indeed, we feel assured that the moment slavery is abolished, from that moment our Southern brethren, every ten of whom have probably seven relatives in the North, would begin to emerge from a hateful delirium. From that moment, relieved from imaginary terrors, their days become happy and their nights peaceful and free from alarm; the aggregate amount of labor, under the new stimulus of fair competition, becomes greater day by day; property rises in value; invigorating influences succeed to stagnation, degeneracy, and decay; and union, harmony, and peace, to which we have so long been strangers, become restored, and bind us again in the bonds of friendship and amity, as when we first began our national career under our glorious government of 1789. Why do the leaders of the rebellion seek to change the form of your ancient Government? Is it because the growth of the African clement of your population has come at length to render a change necessary? Will you permit the free Government under which you have thus far lived, and which is so well suited for the development of true manhood, to be altered to a narrow and belittling despotism in order to adapt it to the necessities of ignorant slaves, and the requirements of their proud and aristocratic owners? Will the laboring men of the South bend their necks to the same yoke that is suited to the slave? We think not. We may safely answer that the time has not yet arrived when our Southern brethren, for the mere sake of keeping Africans in slavery, will abandon their long-cherished Free Institutions and become slaves themselves. It is the conviction of my command, as a part of the national forces of the United States, that labor-manual labor-is inherently noble; that it cannot be systematically degraded by any nation without ruining its peace, happiness, and power; that free labor is the granite basis on which Free Institutions must rest; that it is the right, the capital, the inheritance, the hope of the poor man everywhere; that it is especially the right of five millions of our fellow-countrymen in the slave States as well as of the four millions of Africans there; and all our efforts, therefore, however small or great, whether directed against the interference of govern ments from abroad, or against rebellious combinations at home, shall be for Free Labor. Our motto and our standard shall be, here and everywhere, and on all occasions, FREE LABOR AND WORKINGMEN'S RIGHTS. It is on this basis, and this basis alone, that our munificent Government, the asylum of nations, can be per petuated and preserved. J. W. PHELPS, Brigadier-General of Volunteers, Commanding. GEN. PHELPS OFFICIAL REPORT. SHIP ISLAND, MISSISSIPPI SOUND, Dec. 5, 1881. Major-General B. F. Butler, commanding De partment of New England, Boston, Mass.: SIR: A part of the Middlesex Brigade, consisting of the Massachusetts Twenty-sixth and Connecticut Ninth Infantry, volunteers, with Capt. Manning's battery of artillery, volunteers, numbering in all (servants included) one thousand nine hundred and eight, arrived off Fortress Monroe, Virginia, on board the steam transport Constitution, on the 26th of November. In compliance with previous orders and commands, I relieved Colonel Jones, of the Massachusetts Twenty-sixth, in command, and we stood out to sea on the afternoon of the 27th. After a pleasant passage, we reached Ship Island harbor, Mississippi Sound, on the evening of the 3d of December. Despatches for Flag-officer McKean, with which I was intrusted, were sent by Lieut. Winslow, of the December 6, 1861. I have to-day, in accordance with my instructions, held an interview with Capt. Smith, of the Massachusetts, Flag-officer McKean not having arrived. Capt. Smith thinks there is water enough on the island and in the vicinity to supply gunboats and other vessels of the station, although procuring it will be slow and difficult. He says the flag-officer has ordered more guns for the fort, which are daily ex R. R. Cuyler, the same evening to Pensacola station, where the flag-officer then was, and to whom I made known my arrival. Captain Smith, of the steamer Massachusetts, offered us all the means within his power to facilitate our landing, an operation which we have not yet completed, and which we should have found very difficult, if not impossible, but for the zealous assistance rendered by Lieut. Buchanan and the officers of his command, aided by two high-pressure steamers which the navy had re-pected. He suggests a coal depot on the island, cently captured. We found in the harbor the United States war vessels Massachusetts and R. R. Cuyler, beside several prizes, and not long afterward the gunboat New London and an aried schooner came in. Upon the west end of the island a partially finished fort is occupied by about one hundred and seventy sailors and marines, commanded by Lieut. Buchanan, of the navy, who has several large calibre Dahlgren guns in position on navy carriages. The rebels, by whom the island was held several months, abandoned it in September last, and destroyed nearly every thing which they could not carry off. The fort and lighthouse, with the keeper's lodgings, remain, the former unfinished, and the latter injured to some extent by fire. The walls of the fort have been carried up to a sufficient height by the rebels to form nearly a tier of casemates, and partly covered over. With some considerable inason work, and with materials, (none on the ground except lime,) it might receive some twenty guns on casemate carriages. The island is a long, narrow strip of land, running north of east some six or seven miles. Toward the west end, where the harbor lies, and where we are encamped, it consists of hummocks of fine white sand, interspersed with sedgy spots of water. It bears evidence of having been overflowed in some extraordinary storms, large trunks of trees having drifted on some of its higher hummocks. The east end widens out in triangular shape, embracing about one square mile, and is covered with pine trees. I made an unsuccessful effort to have it examined the day after our arrival, and regret having been too much occupied since to repeat it. and a regular steam packet between the island and Fortress Monroe, or some other Northern port. The discharging of the Constitution is still going on. The wind since our arrival has prevailed from north and east, and the water last night rose so high that a considerable portion of the island between the fort and lighthouse was overflowed, leaving a thin sheet of water there-an event which, I am informed, is not unfrequent. The narrow strip of land, about a quarter or a third of a mile in width, which forms the western extremity of the island, is but ill-suited for a camp, either for regulars or volunteers. I have visited the eastern extremity of the island, beyond the lagoon. There is sufficient space for five thousand men, but the land is so interspersed with marshes that I consider a camp there for that number out of the question. The water along the northern shore for some distance is so shallow that our rowboats dragged bottom. The beach is lined with a ridge of sand hummocks, some ten feet in height; but beyond these the land is generally low, and covered with pines, scrub oak, scrub palmetto, and marsh grass in patches. Musquitoes would be troublesome there at all seasons, and in rainy weather much of the ground would be under water. The process of reclamation seems still to be going on with an activity as if it had but just begun, although the island is probably as old as the mainland. The animals here are snakes, toads, birds, raccoons, pigs, and, it is said, alligators. The New London, with four long thirty-twos and one rifled cannon, appears to be, under her present commander, a very effective and wellmanaged craft, giving the enemy much annoyance. The enemy's gunboats are of light draught, armed with rifled guns, and it is folly to allow them such an advantage. With such an advantage on our side we could make our For the present, I concluded to land here, where I can place, though indifferently well, one or two more regiments. The land is in no respect suitable for a camp, especially in view of such instruction as one of the regiments pres-selves felt in this quarter. ent particularly needs. Should the stay here be of long continuance, huts with floors will be necessary. I regret to learn that, in landing the baggage, one of Capt. Manning's six-pounders was lost overboard. Deeming it proper to make known to this people the remote objects of this expedition, I have prepared a proclamation, which I shall endeavor to have disseminated as early and widely as possible, consistent with the more pressing demands of the service. December 7-2 r. M. The Constitution has been discharged, and will sail before dark. While re-perusing this report, the De Soto and New London have been engaging the enemy's boats in the direction of New Orleans. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, J. W. PHELPS, Brigadier-General Commanding. 452 ADJUTANT-GENERAL. WASHINGTON, Dec. 19, 1861. Four of the Federals were wounded-not killed, as we understood yesterday. They got a wagon in the neighborhood, in which their wounded were placed, and a little boy who saw them an hour or two after the fight said that one was dead. NOTE FROM MAJOR-GENERAL BUTLER TO THE and Joseph Johnson, of Boshe's Portland Rangers; Thomas Lilly and Messrs. Dougherty and Fox, of Captain Wickliffe's company, and To the Adjutant-General of the United States Paul Burgett, of Captain King's company, Army: were taken prisoners. SIR: I have the honor to forward to the Commanding General this report of BrigadierGeneral Phelps. I have not received from General Phelps any official copy of the proclamation to which he refers, but from other sources have such information as renders it certain that the printed copies are nearly correct. I need hardly say the issuing of any proclamation, upon such occasion, was neither suggested nor authorized by me, and most certainly not such a one. With that exception, I commend the report, and ask attention to its clear and business-like statements. I have the honor to be, your obedient servant, BENJ. F. BUTLER, Brigadier-General Commanding. Doc. 212. Doc. 213. SECRETARY SEWARD'S LETTER. CONTRABANDS IN DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON CITY, December 4, 1861. To Major-General George B. McClellan, Washington: GENERAL: I am directed by the President to call your attention to the following subject: Persons claimed to be held to service or labor AFFAIR AT WHIPPOORWILL BRIDGE, KY. under the laws of the State of Virginia, and DECEMBER 4, 1861. THE Louisville-Nashville Courier, of the 9th of December, gives the following details of the bridge-burning affair at Whippoorwill: A detachment of fifteen had been stationed at the bridge to guard it, of whom two were absent at the time of the attack. actually employed in hostile service against the as fugitives from service or labor should be immediately followed by the military arrest of the parties making the seizure. The Federals, fifty or sixty in number, under command of a Dutch Jew peddler named Netter, and among whom were several who had approved August 6th, 1861, entitled “An Act By the fourth section of the act of Congress been raised in the neighborhood, made their to confiscate property used for insurrectionary appearance about daybreak Thursday morning. purposes," such hostile employment is made a Four of the guard, who were on duty, and who full and sufficient answer to any further claim were standing by a plank cabin, fired upon to service or labor. Persons thus employed them, whereupon they received a volley of and escaping are received into the military proover one hundred rounds from Sharp's revolv-tection of the United States, and their arrest ing rifles, killing two instantly and wounding another. Most of the shots were fired into the cabin, on the supposition that the rest of the guard were asleep in it, but fortunately they were in a cabin a little distance off. They the Mayor of the city of Washington and to Copies of this communication will be sent to were aroused by the firing, but by the time the Marshal of the District of Columbia, that they were up, the Federals were at the cabin, any collision between the civil and military and they had to surrender. They put the pris-authorities may be avoided. oners under guard, tore down the cabins, put the planks on the bridge, which they sprinkled with turpentine, and then fired it. Our informant was set about gathering up the baggage of the guard, but, finding an opportunity, he made his escape and came to Russellville. Willis Campbell, of Logan County, a member of Captain King's company, and Hatch Jupin, of Bardstown, a member of Captain Wickliffe's company, were killed, and Joseph Wilson, of Bardstown, also in Captain Wickliffe's company, was severely but not dangerously wounded in the thigh. While loading his gun for the second fire, his right forefinger was shot off. Joseph Hall, James Watshall, and John Jernigon, of Captain Mitchell's company; Isaac Duckwall I am, General, your very obcdient, Doc. 214. THE IROQUOIS AND THE SUMTER. THE following official report from Captain UNITED STATES STRAMER IROCrois, į |