distance. Her example was quickly followed | Geo. Richard Boush, John Harbonner, Jos. D. by the other two steamers, the Monticello making headway very slowly, and rolling heavily, as if partially filled with water. Thus in this first encounter in our waters, victory remains with us. The troops that achieved it were a company from Columbus, Ga., Capt. Colquitt, and the Woodis Rifles, from this place, Capt. Lamb. A detachment of the Junior Rifles of this place were also in the work. The men, all accounts agree, exhibited the coolness and courage of veterans. No troops could have behaved better. When the affair was ended, Captains Colquitt and Lamb both made speeches to the command, and complimented them on their gallant and soldierly bearing. Gen. Gwynn, who was present during a part of the engagement, also spoke in high terms of the bravery that the troops exhibited. As usual, in the battles that have thus far occurred during the present singular war, "nobody was hurt." That is, nobody on our side, except one man who got a bruised shin from a spent fragment of a shell, and Col. Collier, aid to Gen. Gwynn, who, I learn, was rapped so severely over the knuckles by a flying splinter, as to damage his hand somewhat. These, I believe, are the only casualties, great or small, that occurred on our side. On the part of the enemy, the list, it is to be hoped, presents a bloodier appearance. Last night, four of the heaviest guns, and a force of nearly a thousand men, were moved down to the point. It was expected that warm work would occur there this morning, but up to the present writing (10 A. M.) every thing is quiet. Among the troops moved last night, were the five Petersburg companies heretofore stationed at Ferry Point, and the Richmond Grays, all under command of Col. Weisiger. Let these boys have a chance, and they will surely give a good account of themselves. They marched with the greatest alacrity, and shouted when the order was given. They all have the proper mettle. NORFOLK, May 20, 9 P. M. All is quiet here to-night. Between 1,500 and 2,000 Confederate troops were concentrated at Sewell's Point last night, but the Yankee mercenaries did not return, as apprehended, and our men, who were actually eager for the fray, had nothing to do. The steamer West Point, Captain Rowe, belonging to the York River Railroad line, left the railroad wharf at Portsmouth, to-day, under a flag of truce, to visit the Federal fleet off Old Point Comfort, for the purpose of carrying to that destination all the women and children who desire to join their Northern friends. The steamer was accompanied by Capt. Thos. T. Hunter, commander of the Virginia Navy. The families of the following, among other persons, left in the steamer: James Hepenstall, L. T. Barnard, J. Lucas, Knapp, Thomas Nelson, Robert Gill, John Butler, W. H. Lewis, and James H. Hardwick. The West Point having accomplished its mission, has returned. Captain Hunter reports the Monticello as having fared very badly in her engagement with our battery at Sewell's Point, yesterday. The boat is seriously damaged in both hull and machinery, and it is thought that it will be some time before she can indulge in another bombardment. Six men were killed on board, and several badly wounded. We have been unable to learn the names of the killed, or the extent of the injuries of the maimed. -Richmond Examiner, May 22 Doc. 178. MEETING OF THE N. Y. BIBLE SOCIETY, MAY 19, 1861. WM. ALLEN BUTLER, Esq., presided at the meeting. After the reading of selections of the Scripture, and prayer by the Rev. Mr. Hastings, followed by the singing of a hymn by the congregation, Mr. Butler said that in this Christian land, where the recruit was sworn into service upon the Bible, there needed no special plea to justify an effort to place the Gospel in the hands of every soldier, as his best companion for the war. It might have been said that there were other things with which our troops should be supplied rather than Bibles; they needed muskets instead of Bibles. He agreed that muskets were the first thing needed. The Society he represented was not a society for the suppression of muskets or any weapons of war that would make our troops victorious. When liberty was first imperilled in Massachusetts, her men seized the firelock, and did not turn back even for their Bibles. He believed that men who loved their Bibles most, and who wore upon their heart of hearts its most sacred truths the most deeply graven, would be the first to employ those Bibles to press home those bullets which were to be fired in the defence of rights, such as were imperilled to-day. (Cheers.) But no such necessity existed. We were able to equip our army as became a Christian people. Mistakes in this direction consequent upon haste were to be corrected. When the foundations of truth and justice were to be re-established for a thousand generations, there would be time allowed for preparation. They meant to place the New Testament in the hand of every soldier as the very best manual of duty. Mr. Pierson then made a statement of the operations of the Society, from which it appeared that there had been 29 city regiments fully supplied, and 5 in the course of supply. To these, 23,000 Testaments had been furnished. It was proposed to distribute 7,000 Testaments among the 16 regiments now forming in the city, which will bring up the total issues of the Society to volunteers, by the second week in | Never were a people brought together to mainJune, to 30,000 copies. Many of Ellsworth's | tain dearer rights or more imperilled and imFire Zouaves said, on receiving the Testaments, "We will fight for the book, sir; we will defend it, sir." Mr. Smythe also gave an account of his experience as a Bible distributor. He referred to the action of Miss Brown, and said how delightful it was to think that at the moment her father was preparing to meet the enemy at Fort Pickens, she was going about at Fort Hamilton, like an angel of light, offering the gospel to the soldiers. The Rev. Dr. Hitchcock, in commencing his address, related an incident of one of the Massachusetts troops, who, on unbuttoning his coat, drew from one pocket a Bible, and from the other a revolver. The State militant should furnish the revolver, and the church militant should furnish the Bible; that was a union of Church and State which he thought all would agree was legitimate and necessary. (Cheers.) The grand peril of our armies was the moral peril they were to encounter. But it should be understood that they believed in war, in such a war as the present, vindicating the rights of man. (Cheers.) The Bible enforced righteous war. The question had become a very simple one: Should we suffer our nationality to be assassinated, or should we strike down the assassin? There were also two questions before the American people: the first was, Should a State or States be allowed to secede violently! The people were answering in indignant thunder tones, No! (Cheers.) The other question looming in the horizon was, Should States be suffered to secede by peaceful means? Until recently many had held that if States were determined to go out, and adopted peaceful measures to accomplish their purpose, they must be allowed to go. But a Providence had guided us more wisely than we could ourselves, and the people throughout the length and breadth of the land, were coming to say that there should never be a disruption of this Union either in peace or by war. (Cheers.) If a division were allowed, how long could parties live beside the imaginary line without quarrelling? War in such case would come; and we might as well meet it at the threshold. (Cheers.) Suppose Rhode Island should want to go. We could afford to keep that State for a clam bed, but we could never allow another flag to wave over it than the Stars and Stripes. (Cheers.) So we could afford to keep Louisiana for alligators, but no other flag but ours should wave over it. (Cheers.) If the blood of thousands upon thousands were needed to seal the issue, with bowed heads we could only say, Thy will, O God, be done. George Douglas, Esq., (who gave $1,000 to the Society,) said he believed Providence had appointed General Scott to be the leader of our forces in this second war for liberty, as He had General Washington in the first. Dr. S. H. Tyng next addressed the meeting: portant interests than those involved in the present contest. He could not take a pirate's hand, who was going to secure a prize of twenty dollars a head for every man he murdered, and put a Bible in his hands, as a sanction for his course. What kind of a Union would that be, where the chains of the slave should sound from one end of the land to the other, and the infernal boast be realized that a man should count the roll of his slaves on Bunker Hill? This was not a war of sections; it was not a civil war. He would dignify it by no such name. There were hundreds and thousands in the Southern land praying for the power which should give them help. In Virginia, the scene of eighteen years of his ministry, there were tens of thousands, he believed, who were anxiously waiting for that which is called the army of the North to deliver them from the tyranny that had been usurped over them. He would not descend to call it civil warfare. He would not meet pirates upon the deck, and call it warfare. He would hang them as quick as he would shoot a mad dog. (Cheers.) There was one road to peace, and that was absolute and entire subjection. (Cheers.) He did not mean the subjection of the South, but of the riotous mob which there had control of affairs. The sword of justice was the only pen that could write the final treaty. Referring to the troops that had been raised, the speaker asked who ever saw such an army as has been gathered in our land? He would not except the rare birds of Billy Wilson's regiment. He might venture to say of them that their salvation might lie in the very consecration they have made of themselves to their country. (Cheers.) Twenty-three thousand Bibles had been given to the troops who go to fight for their country; did anybody believe there were five hundred copies in the army of renegades who are meeting them in the contest? It would scald and singe their polluted hands. We had every cause to be proud of our army. They are worthy of the Bible. How their names will glisten in glory! One of the noblest results he looked for was a land without a slave upon it. (Cheers.) A nation in which no more shall God's image be sold upon the block by the auctioneer. Said a gentleman, "The Bible authorizes human slavery; you must acknowledge that slavery is a Divine institution." The old minister to whom the remark was addressed, gathered himself up and replied, "Yes, sir; in the same sense in which hell is." (Cheers.) -N. Y. Tribune, May 20. Doo. 179. NORTH CAROLINA ORDINANCE OF SE CESSION. WE, the people of the State of North Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the ordinance adopted by the State of North Carolina, in the convention of 1789, whereby the Constitution of the United States was ratified and adopted, and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly, ratifying and adopting amendments to the said Constitution, are hereby repealed, rescinded, and abrogated. "We do further declare and ordain that the Union now subsisting between the State of North Carolina and the other States, under the title of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved, and that the State of North Carolina is in the full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State. "Done at Raleigh, 20th day of May, in the year of our Lord 1861." The following ordinance was also passed: "We, the people of North Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the State of North Carolina does hereby assent to and ratify the Constitution for the Provisional Government of the Confederate States of America, adopted at Montgomery, in the State of Alabama, on the 8th of February, 1861, by the Convention of Delegates from the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and that North Carolina will enter into the federal association of States upon the terms therein proposed, when admitted by the Congress or any competent authority of the Confederate States. "Done at Raleigh, 20th day of May, in the year of our Lord 1861." -N. Y. Times, May 26. Doc. 180. Company F-Captain Brady; 1st Lieut., J. Company I-Captain Delany; 1st Lieut., Thomas W. Davis; 2d Lieut., Frank Mott, (son of Dr. Mott of this city.) Company K-Captain Darrow; 1st Lient., Engineer corps-Captain Sage; 1st Lieut., J. Vanderpoel. -N. Y. World. Doc. 181. GOV. MAGOFFIN'S PROCLAMATION. ing: Whereas, Many good citizens requested him to forbid the march of any forces over Kentucky to attack Cairo, or otherwise disturb the peaceful attitude of Kentucky with reference to the deplorable war now waging between the United and Confederate States; also, stating that the same citizens requested him to forbid the march of any United States force over Kentucky soil for the occupation of any post or place within Kentucky; and whereas, every indication of public sentiment shows a determined purpose of the people to maintain a fixed position of self-defence, proposing and intending no invasion or aggression towards any other State or States, forbidding the quartering of troops upon her soil by either hostile section, but simply standing aloof from an unnatural, horrid, and lamentable strife, for the existence whereof Kentucky, neither by thought, word, nor act, is in anywise responsible; and whereas, this policy is, in judgment, wise, THE following are the officers:— peaceful, safe, and honorable, and most likely Col., S. W. B. Tompkins; Lieut.-Col., John to preserve the peace and amity between the H. Wilcox; Major, J. J. Dimock; Adjutant, neighboring border States on both shores of A. V. Rea; Special Aid, Capt. Joseph Byrne; the Ohio, and protect Kentucky from deploraQuartermaster, H. R. Foote; Assistant Quar-ble civil war; and whereas, the arms distributed termaster, Clinton Berry; Surgeon, Alfred Pow-to the Home Guard are not to be used against ell; Assistant Surgeon, George Ferguson; Com- the Federal or Confederate States, but to resist missary, Coffin; Ordnance officer, John and prevent encroachment on her soil, rights, Armour Paymaster, W. H. Newman; Cap- honor, and sovereignty, by either of the bellitain of Engineers, E. H. Sage; Chaplain, W. gerent parties, and hoping Kentucky may beH. Reynolds; Acting Chaplain, Alfred Stevens. come a successful mediator between them, and The Company officers are:in order to remove a founded distrust and susCompany A-Captain Graham; 1st Lieut., picion of purposes to force Kentucky out of the Henry A. Maxwell; 2d Lieut., Julius Hart. Union at the point of the bayonet, which may have been strongly and wickedly engendered in the public mind in regard to my own position and that of the State Guard; SECOND REGIMENT N. Y. S. M. Company B-Captain Reed; 1st Lieut., Thomas W. Baird; 2d Lieut., Richard Campbell. Company C-Captain Sted; 1st Lieut., John Bookhout; 2d Lieut., Robinson. Company D-Captain Kennedy; 1st Lieut., John Vaughan; 2d Lieut., not appointed. Company E-Captain Houston; 1st Lieut., Robert Burns; 2d Lieut., John Murray. Now, therefore, I hereby notify and warn all other States, separated or united, especially the United and Confederate States, that I solemnly forbid any movement upon Kentucky soil, or occupation of any post or place therein for any purpose whatever, until authorized by invita Amounts due by them into the Treasury of the Confederate States: tion or permission of the legislative and execu- | An Act to authorize certain Debtors to pay the tive authorities. I especially forbid all citizens of Kentucky, whether incorporated in the State Guard or otherwise, making any hostile SECTION 1. The Congress of the Confederate demonstrations against any of the aforesaid States of America do enact, that all persons in sovereignties, to be obedient to the orders of any manner indebted to individuals, or corpolawful authorities, to remain quietly and peace- rations, in the United States of America, (exably at home, when off military duty, and re- cept the States of Delaware, Maryland, Kenfrain from all words and acts likely to provoke tucky, and Missouri, and the District of Columa collision, and so otherwise conduct that the bia,) be, and are hereby, prohibited from paydeplorable calamity of invasion may be avert-ing the same to their respective creditors, or ed; but meanwhile to make prompt and efficient preparation to assume the paramount and supreme law of self-defence, and strictly of self-defence alone. -N. Y. Times, May 21. Doc. 182. SECOND TENNESSEE REGIMENT. THE following are the commanding officers: Colonel, Wm. B. Bate; Lieut.-Col., Goodall, Major, Doak; Quartermaster, M. W. Cluskey; Surgeon, Dr. Kennedy; Assistant Surgeon, Dr. Erskine. The following are the company officers: A, Capt. Stephen White; B, Capt. Anderson; C, Capt. Chaney; D, Capt. Henry Rutherford; E, Capt. Hunt; F, Capt. T. D. White; G, Capt. Erthman; H, Capt. Dennison; I, Capt. Tyre; J, Capt. Humphrey Bate. The Carolina Grays (Capt. Hunt) is the flag company of the regiment. their agents or assignees, pending the existing war waged by that Government against the Confederate States, or any of the slaveholding States before named. SEO. 2. Any person indebted as aforesaid shall be, and is hereby, authorized to pay the amount of his indebtedness into the Treasury of the Confederate States, in specie or treasury notes, and shall receive from the Treasurer a certificate, countersigned by the Register, showing the amount paid, and on what account, and the rate of interest which the same was bearing. SEC. 3. Such certificate shall bear like interest with the original contract, and shall be redeemable at the close of the war and the restoration of peace, in specie or its equivalent, on presentation of the original certificate. SEO. 4. All laws and parts of laws militating against this act, be, and the same are hereby, repealed. HOWELL COBB, President of the Congress. JEFFERSON DAVIS. -N. Y. Tribune, Juno 30. Approved May 21, 1861. Doc. 184. AMERICAN AFFAIRS IN GERMANY. The regiment is called the "Walker Legion," in compliment to the Secretary of State of the Southern Confederacy. The Colonel is from Gallatin county, is a distinguished lawyer, and a man of undoubted ability; besides, he has ac quired fame on the bloody fields of Mexico. The Lieutenant-Colonel (of Sumner county) was one of the first to scale the walls of Mon- IT is not to be denied, that, from a military terey at the siege of that place by the Ameri- point of view, the rebels in the United States cans. Major Doak is also an old Mexican vol- have just now several great advantages over unteer, and a member of the Tennessee Legis- the Government. They have an ably organlature. M. W. Cluskey, the Quartermaster, (ofized army, which has been trained for several the Memphis Avalanche,) is well known to the whole country as the author of the "Political Text Book," and former Postmaster of the United States House of Representatives; while the surgeons of the regiment are both members of the Legislature, and leading members of their profession. The regiment is made up of citizens of Davidson, Rutherford, Maury, and Shelby counties, and is composed of the very best material. They came here for the pur-will be in favor of the rebels. pose of going to Washington. They are more than willing to have a hand in driving the Vandals from that place. -Richmond Examiner, May 22. Doc. 183. DEBTORS TO U. S. CREDITORS. THE following is the text of the act on this subject, passed at the last session of the Confederate Congress: months, and which must needs fight and plunder in order to be kept together; while the Government can oppose to their attacks only raw and undisciplined troops. Moreover, as the war is to be carried on in the border slave States and in the southern ports, the Government troops will suffer from the summer heats, which do not so affect the secessionists. It is, therefore, quite possible that the first results We have, however, no doubt that intelligence and enduring strength are on the side of the Government, and that victory cannot but remain with the loyal side. We judge from the recent news that the people of the North have at last learned to recognize and value justly the objects and power of the rebels, who threaten their national existence; and we believe that the North is now determined never to lay down its arms till the authority of the law is once more restored in all the seceded Sates, and the political power of slavery, which has grown to so mischievous a strength, is destroyed. Twenty-three millions of people, strengthened by all the arts of peace, and possessed of inexhaustible resources, are opposed to three hundred and fifty thousand slaveholders, four millions of slaves, and three millions of poor whites, who, with the exception of a few cities, are thinly scattered over a broad space of country, and are accustomed to the most primitive and unsocial conditions of life. The whole civilized world has an interest in this war. It is a war which the people of the Northern States, conservative by the nature of their industrial and political habits, could not longer put off; and it is a war which under perhaps other names many a nation of Europe will have to take up in its turn. It is with them (the United States) as with us: the feudalism of the middle ages is arrayed in arms against the citizenship of the nineteenth century; an exploded theory of society is lifting up its head against the triumphs of our think ing industrial and progressive century; the poverty-struck Don Quixotes of the Southern plantations gave battle to the roaring windmills and smoking chimneys of the wealthy North. It is the supercilious noble in arms against the spirit of the century, in which the citizen is supreme. In such an issue we can wish success only to the constitutional Govern ment. -Cologne Gazette, May 5. Doc. 185. invading armies. The mission of the Union has ceased to be one of peace and equality, and now the dire alternative of yielding tamely before hostile armies, or meeting the shock like freemen, is presented to the South. Sectional prejudices, sectional hate, sectional aggrandizement, and sectional pride, cloaked in the name of the Government and Union, stimulate the North in prosecuting this war. Thousands are duped into its support by zeal for the Union, and reverence for its past associations; but the motives of the Administration are too plain to be misunderstood. The time has come when a man's section is his country. I stand by mine. All my hopes, my fortunes, are centred in the South. When I see the land for whose defence my blood has been spilt, and the people whose fortunes have been mine through a quarter of a century of toil, threatened with invasion, I can but cast my lot with theirs and await the issue. For years I have been denounced on account of my efforts to save the South from the consequences of the unhappy measures which have brought destruction upon the whole country. When, in the face of almost my entire section, and a powerful Northern strength, I opposed the Kansas and Nebraska bill, the bitterness of language was exhausted to decry and vilify me. When I pictured the consequences of that measure, and foretold its effects, I was unheeded. Now, when every Northern man who supported that measure is demanding the subjugation of the South, our people can see the real feelings which actuate them in supporting it. Devoted as I was to peace and to the Union, I have struggled against the realization even of my own prophecies. Every result I foresaw has already occurred. It was to bring peace and strength to the South. It has brought war, and spread free soil almost to the northern border of Texas. All we can now do is to stand firm by what we have, and be more wise in the future. The trouble is upon us; and no matter how it came, or who brought it on, we have to meet it. Whether we have opposed this Secession movement or favored it, we must alike meet the consequences. I sought calm and prudent action. I desired a united and prepared South, if we must leave the Union. Entire coöperation may not now be possible, but we have ample strength for the struggle if we husband it aright. We must fight now whether we are prepared or not. SAM HOUSTON'S SPEECH AT INDEPENDENCE, TEXAS, MAY 10. THE troubles which have come upon the community are neither unexpected to me, nor do I fail to realize all the terrible consequences yet to ensue. Since the passage of the Nebraska and Kansas bill, I have had but little hope of the stability of our institutions. The advantages gained to the North by that measure, through the incentive to Anti-Slavery agitation and the opening of a vast territory to Free-Soil settlement, were such that I saw that the South would soon be overslaughed, and deprived of equality in the Government—a state of things which a chivalrous people like ours would not submit to. Yet I fostered the longing hope that when the North saw the dangers of disunion, and beheld the resolute spirit with which our people met the issue, they would abandon their aggressive policy, and allow the My position was taken months since. Though Government to be preserved and administered I opposed secession, for the reasons mentioned, in the same spirit with which our forefathers I saw that the policy of coercion could not be created it. For this reason I was conservative. permitted. The attempt to stigmatize and crush So long as there was a hope of obtaining our out this revolution, comprehending States and rights, and maintaining our institutions, through millions of people, as a rebellion, would show an appeal to the sense of justice and the broth- that the Administration at Washington did not erhood of the Northern people, I was for pre-comprehend the vast issues involved, or refused serving the Union. The voice of hope was to listen to the dictates of reason, justice, and weeks since drowned by the guns of Fort Sum- humanity. A stubborn resort to force when ter. It is not now heard above the tramp of moderation was necessary, would destroy every |