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to the people of Kentucky, some passages of which are of historical interest, as a description of the times, from a pen which, for many years, had been able and conspicuous in every cause of truth. He wrote:

The

"The Federal Government-the creature-has set itself above the creator. atrocious doctrine is announced by the President, and acted upon, that the States derive their power from the Federal Government, and may be suppressed on any pretence of military necessity. Everywhere the civil has given way to the military power. The fortresses of the country are filled with victims seized without warrant of law, and ignorant of the cause of their imprisonment. The legislators of States and other public officers are seized while in the discharge of their official duties, taken beyond the limits of their respective States, and imprisoned in the forts of the Federal Government. A subservient Congress ratifies the usurpations of the President, and proceeds to complete the destruction of the Constitution. History will declare that the annals of legislation do not contain laws so infamous as those enacted at the last session. They sweep away every vestige of public and personal liberty, while they confiscate the property of a nation containing ten millions of people. The great mass of the Northern people seem anxious to sunder every safeguard of freedom; they eagerly offer to the Government what no European monarch would dare to demand. The President and his Generals are unable to pick up the liberties of the people as rapidly as they are thrown at their feet. General Anderson, the military dictator of Kentucky, announces, in one of his proclamations, that he will arrest no one who does not act, write, or speak in opposition to Mr. Lincoln's Government. It would have completed the idea if he had added, or think in opposition to it. Look at the condition of our State under the rule of our new protectors. They have suppressed the freedom of speech and of the press. They seize people by military force on mere suspicion, and impose on them oaths unknown to the laws. Other citizens they imprison without warrant, and carry them out of the State, so that the writ of habeas corpus cannot reach them. Every day foreign armed bands are making seizures among the people. Hundreds of citizens, old and young, venerable magistrates, whose lives bave been distinguished by the love of the people, have been compelled to fly from their homes and families, to escape imprisonment and exile at the hands of Northern and German soldiers under the orders of Mr. Lincoln and his military subordinates."

The early military movements in Kentucky are to be considered as taking place along a line running through the interiour of the State, extending from Columbus in the West to Prestonburg and Pikeville in the mountains on the Virginia frontier.

From his strong position at Cumberland Mountain, Gen. Zollicoffer prepared for cautious advances upon the enemy. On the 19th of September, a portion of his command advanced to Barboursville, and dispersed a camp of fifteen hundred Federals. Gen. Zollicoffer continued to advance, and early in October reached the town of London in Laurel County, breaking up the enemy's camps in that region.

Meanwhile, Brigadier-General Buckner, with a force of Kentucky volunteers, advanced from the borders, and on the 18th of September entered the town of Bowling Green, in Warren County, eleven miles south of Green River, and immediately on the line of approach to Louisville. He issued a proclamation to the people of Kentucky, stating that their Legis

lature had been faithless to their will; that instead of enforcing neutrality, they had sought to make the State a fortress in which the armed forces of the United States might securely prepare to subjugate alike the people of Kentucky and of the Southern States. He declared that the Confederate troops occupied Bowling Green as a defensive position, and that he renewed the pledge previously given by their commanders, to retire as soon as the Federal forces would in like manner withdraw.

But the first serious collision of arms in Kentucky was to occur in the neighbourhood of the waters of the Ohio and the Tennessee; and to that end of the line of operations we must now take the attention of the reader.

THE BATTLE OF BELMONT.

Gen. Polk had for some time been strengthening his position at Columbus, and had also occupied Belmont, a small village on the Missouri shore, so as to command both banks of the stream.

With a view of surprising the small Confederate force on the west bank, Gen. U. S. Grant collected a fleet of large river steamboats, and embarking at night, steamed down the river unobserved. Within a few miles of Columbus and Belmont the river makes a sudden bend, and behind this bend Grant disembarked his forces, and began to advance towards Belmont, through the woods. When the morning of the 7th of November broke, the action commenced; the first intimation of the enemy's presence being a succession of rapid volleys. The troops were soon under arms, but the sudden surprise precluded all idea of a regular line or plan of battle.

It appears that when the enemy was reported landing troops a few miles above, the garrison in Belmont consisted of only two regiments. Gen. Pillow, with four regiments, immediately crossed, and assumed command. He had scarcely done so, when Grant's advance opened fire, and the fight soon became fierce and obstinate. The enemy made a desperate attempt to turn the left wing of the Confederates, but was defeated by the destructive fire of Beltzhoover's battery. This wing was severely taxed, as was also the right. Finding that they stood firm and unbroken, and, anxious for decisive action before reinforcements could reach Pillow, Grant repeatedly hurled his strongest force at the Confederate centre, which was in the open field.

The centre evidently faltered under these heavy and repeated attacks. Pillow ordered a charge, and the first line of the enemy was driven upon their reserves. But ammunition now began to fail, and word came that the wings could not maintain their position if the centre gave in, as there was every reason to fear it would do. Again a charge was ordered, which

THE BATTLE OF BELMONT.

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proved no less successful than the first. It was now found that the only battery of the Confederates had not a cartridge remaining, and most of the troops were similarly circumstanced; there was no alternative but to fall back until reinforcements should arrive from Columbus.

In moving back to the river bank, the Confederate line was more or less broken and disorganized; and the enemy appeared to be master of the field. He was already in full possession of the Confederate camps, and was burning them. But at the critical moment three regiments, which had crossed the river from Columbus, were ordered to move up the river bank, through the woods, and get in the enemy's rear. The enemy had seen the boats crossing with reinforcements, and played on them with a heavy battery; but the guns at Columbus replied, and in a few moments the enemy's pieces were silenced. Finding that Polk himself was crossing, and landing troops far up the river on his line of retreat, Grant immediately began to fall back, but had not proceeded far when he encountered Louisianians, Mississippians, Tennesseans, and others, formed on his flanks, subjecting him to loss every moment, while the guns at Columbus continued rapidly firing across the river, and from the high position of the works, telling with deadly effect. Under these circumstances resistance was hopeless, and Grant reluctantly ordered a retreat; but while conducting it, he was subjected to a terrific cross-fire from the Confederates, while Polk in person was pushing the rear vigorously, capturing prisoners and arms every yard of the road. The confusion, noise, and excitement were terrible, the Federals rapidly retreating to their boats, and the advance columns of their pursuers pouring deadly volleys into them. A defeat was suddenly and almost miraculously converted into a glorious triumph of Confederate arms.

In this obstinate conflict, in which the Confederates fought by detachments, and always against superiour numbers, it was officially stated that their loss in killed, wounded, and missing, was 632, while that of the enemy was claimed to have been treble in extent. He had been driven under a devouring fire, and even after he had reached the river, his crowded transports were assailed with the fire of thousands of deadly rifles. In Northern newspapers, Belmont was put down as "another Union victory." The style and effrontery of the falsehood was characteristic. The first part of the day, when Grant pushed the Confederates to the river, was glowingly described; but the subsequent flank movement which converted his early success into a defeat and a rout, and was, indeed, the event of the day, was dismissed in the briefest and most indifferent terms. Grant wrote: "The rebels followed in the rear to our place of debarkation." Such was the method of Northern misrepresentation. It is remarkable that, by ingenious suppression, or by the rouged falsehood of official reports, the North claimed, after Manassas, every event of the war as a Fed

eral victory, unless where some political animosity brought out the details, or some personal rivalry extorted the truth.

With the Confederate victory of Belmont, we leave for the present the story of military operations in the West. We shall soon recur to that theatre, to find there some of the largest and most important events of the war. We shall discover that the enemy, in fact, conceived a new plan of invasion of the South, through Kentucky and Tennessee, by means of amphibious expeditions, composed of gunboats and land forces; and that a war which the Southern people supposed lingered on the Potomac, was suddenly transferred and opened with imposing scenes on the western waters.

CHAPTER XI.

THE FICKLE PUBLIC OF THE NORTH.-GEN. SCOTT.-THE CLAMOUR FOR M'CLELLAN.-HIS EXALTATION IN THE NEWSPAPERS.-THE THEATRICAL AND SENSATIONAL MIND OF THE

NORTH.-ADVANCE OF THE CONFEDERATES TOWARDS THE POTOMAC.-M'CLELLAN'S

DESIGNS.-THE CONFEDERATES FALL BACK TO CENTREVILLE.-THE BATTLE OF LEESBURG.-M'CLELLAN'S MOVEMENT ON THE CONFEDERATE LEFT.-EVANS' BRIGADE.— FORTUNATE CAPTURE OF A FEDERAL COURIER.-THE FEDERALS CROSS THE POTOMAO AND OCCUPY BALL'S BLUFF.-SPLENDID CHARGE OF THE CONFEDERATES.-DEATH OF COL. BAKER. THE ENEMY DRIVEN INTO THE RIVER.-AN APPALLING SPECTACLE OF DEATH.-MISREPRESENTATIONS IN WASHINGTON.-MORALE OF M'CLELLAN'S ARMY.-THE AFFAIR AT DRANESVILLE.-DEFEAT OF STUART.-" STONEWALL" JACKSON'S NEW COMMAND.-HIS EXPEDITION FROM WINCHESTER.-TERRIBLE SUFFERINGS OF HIS COMMAND. -HIS DEMONSTRATION AT BATH.-HIS MOVEMENT TO ROMNEY, AND RETURN TO WINCHESTER.-CLOSE OF THE FIRST YEAR'S CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA.-NAVAL OPERATIONS IN 1861. THE ENEMY'S IMMENSE ADVANTAGE IN HIS NAVY.-STATISTICS OF THE FEDERAL NAVY.-IMPROVIDENCE OF THE CONFEDERATES IN COAST AND RIVER DEFENCES. SECRETARY MALLORY.-THE CONFEDERACY TO LOSE ALL HER SEAPORTS.-TWO NAVAL EXPEDITIONS DOWN THE CAROLINA COAST.-ENGAGEMENT AT HATTERAS INLET. AN UNEQUAL COMBAT.-THE PORT ROYAL EXPEDITION.CAPTURE OF PORT ROYAL.-VALUE OF THIS FEDERAL SUCCESS.-THE TRENT AFFAIR.-CAPTURE OF COMMISSIONERS MASON AND SLIDELL.-AN ENGLISH COMMANDER'S PROTEST.—GREAT INDIGNATION IN ENGLAND.-PREPARATIONS THERE FOR WAR.-CONCEIT AND EXULTATIONS OF THE NORTH.-TRIBUTES AND ATTENTIONS TO CAPT. WILKES.CONCERN CONFEDERATES.-WHAT RICHMOND ORATORS SAID.-SEWARD'S CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT.-HIS COLLAPSE.-THE LAST RESORT OF DEMAGOGUEISM.-DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE CONFEDERATES IN THE TERMINATION OF THE TRENT AFFAIR. EARL RUSSELL'S DECLARATION IN PARLIAMENT.-MR. GREGORY'S REPLY.-THE TREATY OF PARIS AND THE FEDERAL BLOCKADE.

AMONG THE

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In the beginning of the war, General Winfield Scott had been entitled in Northern newspapers "the Greatest Captain of the Age." After the disaster of Manassas the same newspapers derided him as an imbecile; and in the meanest humiliation General Scott publicly announced himself an "old coward" for having yielded to popular clamour in fighting the battle, and thus sought by the most infamous confession the mercy of men prompt to insult his fallen fortunes.

The fickle course of popular applause in the North was to exalt a new