REBEL ACCOUNT OF THE FAIRFAX FIGHT. The following account of the attack at Fairfax Court-House, is from The Richmond Enquirer of the 3d inst. It carefully refrains from mentioning the Virginia cavalry, who occupied the place; but the reason of this neglect is discovered in a private letter from the brother of Capt. Marr, (the secession officer killed by our troops,) which states that "the Virginia cavalry who first encountered the enemy, ingloriously fled: " The enemy, on Friday morning, about 3 o'clock, in numbers about 80 strong, entered the town of Fairfax Court-House, under command of Lieut. Tompkins. The company was the United States regulars from Texas. The enemy dashed into town so unexpectedly that the Warrenton Rifles, Capt. John Q. Marr, had only some ten minutes to prepare for them. The enemy fired at the quarters of the troops, killing Capt. Marr instantly, and though near to his command, his death was not known untill after 9 o'clock, when his body was found. The enemy pushed on through the town. The Warrenton Rifles then formed, under Col. Ewell and Gov. Smith, into two platoons, and proceeded down the road after the enemy, and taking position on the side of the road, waited the return of the enemy. Very soon the enemy returned in disorder, when a volley from the rifles scattered them, and caused a retreat up the road. They reformed into "fours," and came up in good order, when another fire from the rifles again scattered them, and they returned by a cross road to Alexandria. Our troops took four horses, branded "U. S." "B," and killed three horses. The retreating detachment were seen near Anandals, with fifteen led horses and a wagon containing wounded men. Four prisoners were taken during the fight, and nine others are reported as having been found in the neighborhood during the next day, (Saturday.) Five United States soldiers were killed. Several carbines, dragoon swords, officers' swords, a double-barrel shot-gun, and eight dragoon revolvers, were picked up by our troops. Our loss was Capt. Marr, killed-a brave and efficient officer, the support of a widowed mother, and a most useful citizen. He was a member of the Virginia Convention, and had filled many responsible positions. Col. Ewell was slightly wounded in the shoulder. A member of the Rappahannock company was also severely wounded. Capt. Marr's company were badly armed, having only rifles without bayonets, and had to encounter United States regulars, armed with sabres, carbines, and revolvers. They nobly performed their duty, notwithstanding there was no officer of the company to command them. Captain Marr was killed before the company was formed, and Lieutenant Shackelford was absent. Captain Marr's death was caused by a random shot, while selecting ground upon which to form his company. The darkness prevented any one seeing him fall, and his death was not known until late the next morning. The Nashville Union has the following notice of Capt. Marr: The telegraphic wires bring us the sad intelligence that Capt. John Marr, brother to our respected friend and associate, Mr. Thomas S. Marr of The Union and American office, has been the first soldier of the South to baptize the soil of the Old Dominion with his patriotic blood, in an engagement with the enemy. Earnest and sincere as is our sympathy with the friends and relatives of this noble martyr to Southern independence, deeply as we condole with them in the decree of Providence which has singled him out as the only victim to Black Republican vengeance at Fairfax, yet we cannot but console them with the inspiring and manly thought that his name now stands side by side, on the roll, with the great and good of earth, who have died for their country and its sacred altars. He has found the grave a pathway to glory, and the libation which he has offered up to the independence of the South will moisten a plant that will bloom in eternal beauty, and give forth immortal fragrance. The heart-stricken grief that must needs follow the announcement of his death, will be assuaged by the glorious sentiment of a Latin poet, Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. The sweetest flowers of Spring will bloom in their brightest hues, and the most enchanting minstrels of the forests of Virginia will warble forth their most thrilling notes over the grave of that young soldier, who gave up his young and promising life to shield his proud old Commonwealth from sacrilege and disgrace, her fields and homes from desolation, her smiling plains from the ravages of a ruthless foe, her men from slavery, and her fair daughters from pollution. He had but one life to lose. That he has given to the nursing mother that gave it to him, to the good old Commonwealth, who has drawn her sword to defend her stainless escutcheon, and who will never drop it from her grasp until the tyrants are beneath her feet. Surely a soldier and a soldier's friends can never repine at death when it comes in such a form. Capt. Marr was a member of the late Convention which dissolved the relations of Virginia to the old Federal Union. He was a gentleman of the highest position, social and political, in his native State, and rushed with the first summons to the field to drive back its invaders. We are not sufficiently posted as to his history, to enter minutely into details. Suffice that he has lived a life of honor and usefulness, and died a glorious death. Peace to his ashes; glory to his name! Doc. 222. -N. Y. Tribune. SPEECH OF PRESIDENT DAVIS, FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS:-I thank you for the compliment your presence conveys. It is an indication of regard, not for the person, | fathers before us, and as becomes their sons. but for the position which he holds. The To the enemy we leave the base acts of the ascause in which we are engaged is the cause of sassin and incendiary, to them we leave it to the advocacy of rights to which we were born, insult helpless women; to us belongs vengeance those for which our fathers of the Revolution upon man. bled the richest inheritance that ever fell to Now, my friends, I thank you again for this man, and which it is our sacred duty to trans-gratifying manifestation. (A voice. "Tell us mit to our children. something of Buena Vista.") Upon us is devolved the high and holy responsibility of preserving the constitutional liberty of a free government. Those with whom we have lately associated have shown themselves so incapable of appreciating the blessings of the glorious institutions they inherited, that they are to-day stripped of the liberty to which they were born. They have allowed an ignorant usurper to trample upon all the prerogatives of citizenship, and to exercise powers never delegated to him; and it has been reserved to your own State, so lately one of the original thirteen, but now, thank God, fully separated from them, to become the theatre of a great central camp, from which will pour forth thousands of brave hearts to roll back the tide of this despotism. Apart from that gratification we may well feel at being separated from such a connection, is the pride that upon you devolves the task of maintaining and defending our new Government. I believe that we shall be able to achieve this noble work, and that the institutions of our fathers will go to our children as safely as they have descended to us. In these Confederate States we observe those relations which have been poetically ascribed to the United States, but which never there had the same reality-States so distinct that each existed as a Sovereign, yet so united that each was wound with the other to constitute a whole; or, as more beautifully expressed, "Distinct as the billows, yet one as the sea." Upon every hill which now overlooks Richmond you have had, and will continue to have, camps containing soldiers from every State in the Confederacy; and to its remotest limits every proud heart beats high with indignation at the thought that the foot of the invader has been set upon the soil of old Virginia. There is not one true son of the South who is not ready to shoulder his musket, to bleed, to die, or to conquer in the cause of liberty here. Beginning under many embarrassments, the result of seventy years of taxation being in the hands of our enemies, we must at first move cautiously. It may be that we shall have to encounter sacrifices; but, my friends, under the smiles of the God of the Just, and filled with the same spirit that animated our fathers, success shall perch on our banners. I am sure you do not expect me to go into any argument upon those questions which, for 25 years, have agitated the country. We have now reached the points where, arguments being exhausted, it only remains for us to stand by our weapons. When the time and occasion serve, we shall smite the smiter with manly arms, as did our Well, my friends, I can only say we will make the battle-fields in Virginia another Buena Vista, and drench with blood more precious than that which flowed there. We will make a history for ourselves. We do not ask that the past shall shed our lustre upon us, bright as our past has been, for we can achieve our own destiny. We may point to many a field, over which has floated the flag of our country when we were of the United States-upon which Southern soldiers and Southern officers reflected their brave spirits in their deeds of daring; and without intending to cast a shadow upon the courage of any portion of the United States, let me call it to your remembrance, that no man who went from these Confederate States has ever yet, as a general officer, surrendered to an enemy. Pardon me if I do not go into matters of history, and permit me, again, to thank you for this kind manifestation of your regard, to express to you my hearty wishes for the indi vidual prosperity of you all, with the hope that you will all pray to God to crown our cause and our country with success. He then retired from the windows amid prolonged cheers. Calls were then made for ex-Governor Wise, to which, after a short delay, he responded as follows: SPEECH OF EX-GOV. HENRY A. WISE. MY FRIENDS:-You all know that I am a civil soldier only, and that in that capacity I was nearly worn down in the siege of the Virginia Convention. Thank God, however, that with a little rest, some help, and some damage from the doctors, I have been enabled to recruit my exhausted energies. The time of deliberation has given place to the time of action, and I have taken up my bed. as an individual, in common with others, to march to Richmond to meet the President of our now separate and independent republic. I am ready to obey his orders, not only with pride, pleasure, and devotion to the cause, and respect to the office he fills, but with respect to the man himself as one who has our fullest confidence. You have to meet a foe with whom you could not live in peace. Your political powers and rights, which were enthroned in that Capitol when you were united with them under the old constitutional bond of the Confederacy, have been annihilated. They have undertaken to annul laws within your own limits that would render your property unsafe within those limits. They have abolitionized | be swept of the Vandals who are now polluting your border, as the disgraced North-west will its atmosphere. show. They have invaded your moral strongholds and the rights of your religion, and have undertaken to teach you what should be the moral duties of men. The band then struck up "Dixie," which was followed by "We may be Happy yet." -N. Y. Express, June 13. Doo. 2221. They have invaded the sanctity of your homes and firesides, and endeavored to play master, father, and husband for you in your households; PROCLAMATION OF COL. PORTERFIELD. in a word, they have set themselves up as a petty Providence by which you are in all things to be guided and controlled. But you have always declared that you would not be subject to this invasion of your rights. Though war was demanded, it was not for you to declare war. But now that the armies of the invader are hovering around the tomb of Washington, where is the Virginian heart that does not beat with a quicker pulsation at this last and boldest desecration of his beloved State? Their hordes are already approaching our metropolis, and extending their folds around our State as does the anaconda around his victim. The call is for action. I rejoice in this war. Who is there that now dares to put on sanctity to depreciate war, or the "horrid glories of war." None. Why? Because it is a war of purification. You want war, fire, blood, to purify you; and the Lord of Hosts has demanded that you should walk through fire and blood. You are called to the fiery baptism, and I call upon you to come up to the altar. Though your pathway be through fire, or through a river of blood, turn not aside. Be in no hurry-no hurry and flurry. Collect yourselves, summon yourselves, elevate yourselves to the high and sacred duty of patriotism. The man who dares to pray, the man who dares to wait until some magic arm is put into his hand; the man who will not go unless he have a Minié, or percussion musket, who will not be content with flint and steel, or even a gun without a lock, is worse than a coward he is a renegade. If he can do no better, go to a blacksmith, take a gun along as a sample, and get him to make you one like it. Get a spear-a lance. Take a lesson from John Brown. Manufacture your blades from old iron, even though it be the tires of your cart-wheels. Get a bit of carriage spring, and grind and burnish it in the shape of a bowie knife, and put it to any sort of a handle, so that it be strong-ash, hickory, oak. But, if possible, get a double-barrelled gun and a dozen rounds of buckshot, and go upon the battle-field with these. If their guns reach further than yours, reduce the distance; meet them foot to foot, eye to eye, body to body, and when you strike a blow, strike home. Your true-blooded Yankee will never stand still in the face of cold steel. Let your aim, therefore, be to get into close quarters, and with a few decided, vigorous movements, always pushing forward, never back, my word for it, the soil of Virginia will THE following proclamation was issued prior to the attack on Phillippa: HEAD-QUARTERS VIRGINIA FORCES, To the People of North-western Virginia : FELLOW-CITIZENS :-I am in your section of Virginia, in obedience to the legally constituted authorities thereof, with the view of protecting this section of the State from invasion by foreign forces and to protect the people in the full enjoyment of their rights-civil, religious, and political. In the performance of my duties, I shall endeavor to exercise every charitable forbearance, as I have hitherto done. I shall not inquire whether any citizens of Virginia voted for or against the Ordinance of Secession. My only inquiry shall and will be as to who are the enemies of our mother-the Commonwealth of Virginia. My duty impels me now to say to all that the citizens of the Commonwealth will at all times be protected by me and those under my command. Those who array themselves against the State will be treated as her enemies, according to the laws thereof. Virginians! allow me to appeal to you, in the name of our common mother, to stand by the voice of your State, and to defend her against all enemies, and especially to repel invasion from any and every quarter. Those who reside within the State, who invite invasion, or who in any manner assist, aid or abet invaders, will be treated as enemies to Virginia. I trust that no Virginian, whether native-born or adopted, will refuse to defend his State and his brothers against invasion and injury. Virginians! be true, and in due time your common mother will come to your relief. Already many of you have rallied to the support of the honor of your State and the maintenance of your liberties. Will you continuo to be freemen, or will you submit to be slaves? Are you capable of governing yourselves? Will you allow the people of other States to govern you? Have you forgotten the precepts of Madison and Jefferson ? Remember that the price of liberty is "eternal vigilance." Virginia has not made war! War has been made upon her and the time-honored principles. Shall she be vindicated in her efforts to maintain the liberties of her people, or shall she bow her head in submission to tyranny and oppression? It seems to me that the true friend of national liberty cannot hesitate. Strike for your State! Strike for your liber ties! Rally! rally at once in defence of your will remain on deposit till the close of hostilimother! G. A. PORTERFIELD, Doc. 223. THE CONFEDERATE POST-OFFICE. CIRCULAR NO. 4, Confederate States of America, Post-Office Department, Montgomery, May 20th, 1861: ties. These deposits will be charged ten per cent. per annum, and the faith, credit, and public property of the whole Territory are pledged for their security. As we have thus far maintained a neutral position with regard to the difficulties now pending, I would counsel a moderate course. Let our action be on the defensive only; and for the better defence of the Territory, I would advise the arming of the Arrapahoes and other tribes of friendly In dians. In the mean time I earnestly invoke the cooperation of all good citizens in the measures hereby adopted for the successful retention of valuables in this Territory, and to secure happiness and prosperity throughout our country. Done at Denver, this 21st day of May, A. D. L. W. BLISS, Acting Governor, Jefferson Territory. -National Intelligencer, Juno 18. 1861. Doo. 225. SIR-You are hereby instructed, as the postal service of the Government of the United States within the Confederate States will be suspended, under the authority of the Confederate States, on and after the 1st day of June next, to retain in your possession, subject to the further orders of this department, for the benefit of the Confederate States, all mail bags, locks and keys, marking and other stamps, blanks for quarterly returns of postmasters, and all other property belonging to or connected with the postal service, and to return forthwith to THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE'S ADDRESS the chief of the appointment bureau of this department a full inventory of the same. You will also report to the chief of the finance bureau of this department, on the 1st day of June proximo, your journal or ledger account with the United States for the service of the Post-Office Department, up to and including the 31st day of the present month of May, in accordance with the general regulations embraced in Chapter 24 of the edition of Laws and Regulations of the Post-Office Department, issued May 15, 1859, page 106, exhibiting the final balance in your possession. I am very respectfully, Το Your obedient servant, Esq., Postmaster at -N. Y. Herald, June 7. Doc. 224. L. W. BLISS' PROCLAMATION. WHEREAS existing exigencies demand immediate and adequate ineasures for the protection of the financial condition of this Territory, on account of the insurrectionary combinations existing in the States, I, L. W. Bliss, Acting Governor of Jefferson Territory, do hereby forbid the transmission by the people of this Territory, under any pretext whatever, to the Government of the United States, or to any of the States thereof, any money, bills, drafts, gold dust, or other things of value, either in payment of any debt now due, or hereafter to become due, or for or on account of any other cause whatever, until the termination of hostilities. In the mean time, however, the citizens of Jefferson Territory are invited to pay the amount of their indebtedness to the citizens of the United States, so fast as it becomes due, into the Treasury of the Territory, where it TO THE PEOPLE OF NORTHWESTERN VIRGINIA. HAVING Submitted to you the resolutions of the Convention held at Wheeling, on the 13th instant, with a brief address, we now crave your earnest attention whilst we discuss, yet further, the very grave and important questions submitted for your consideration and action. We are yet freemen, Virginia freemen, in the full possession and enjoyment of the sacred and inalienable rights guaranteed to us by the Bill the Constitution of the United States. In that of Rights and Constitution of our State, and character and under those sanctions we now address you, and it will remain for us in our future action to determine whether we shall retain them or not. As shown in the resolutions of the Convention already submitted to you, we have been called to pass upon the acts of one of the highest and most solemn assemblages known to our system of Government-the representatives of the people of Virginia in Convention assembled. We must here correct an error of fatal effect and consequence, which meets us at the threshold of our discussion The Convention of Virginia, which was elected on the 4th of February last, and assembled at Richmond on the 13th of the same month, was not the embodiment of the sovereignty of the people of Virginia, They were not clothed with the powers they have assumed to exercise; else could they have undone the work of our fathers, abolished our republican form of Government, and re-established the Crown of Great Britain as our supreme governing power. The act of our Legislature, convening this Convention, expressly provided that the distinct question should be submitted to the people of Virginia, whether any ordinance in any manner affecting or changing our relations to the Government of the United States, or the Constitution of our own State, should be referred to the people, or not. By an unusual, unprecedented majority, the people decided, substantially, that no change should be made, either in our allegiance to the Constitution of the United States or in our State Constitution, without having first received the sanction and approval of our people. The second article of our Bill of Rights declares "that all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people; that magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them." Therefore no act or ordinance of the Convention changing our Government, either State or Federal, can be of any force or effect until the people have, by a free, deliberate, and unconstrained vote, passed upon it; and then only subject to the Constitution of the United States. This was the vital defect in the articles of Confederation, and on the 21st of February, 1787, the Congress, after declaring the inefficiency of the Federal Union, and the necessity of devising such further provisions as should render the same adequate to the exigencies of the Union, and being satisfied that a Convention was "The most probable means of establishing in these States a firm National Government, resolved that it was expedient that a Convention of Delegates appointed by the several States should be held on the second Monday in May then next, at Philadelphia, for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, and reporting to Congress and the several Legislatures such alterations and provisions therein as shall, when agreed to in Congress and confirmed by the States, render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of Government and the preservation of the Union." This leads us to the next, and yet more important question, as to the power, effect, and obligation of the Constitution of the United States. In this address we intend to speak with perfect frankness and candor. Claiming The Congress and the patriotic men of that to understand our rights, we know that we are day had become satisfied, from the experience addressing those of equal intelligence, and who, and trials of the Revolutionary War, and the whilst understanding their rights, have the few years which had elapsed subsequent to its courage and manhood to vindicate and main-close, that the so-called "sovereignty and intain them. The Hon. Jefferson Davis, Presi- dependence," reserved to the States under the dent of the so-called Confederate States, on the Articles of Confederation, were the fruitful 29th of the last month, sent a message to the source of all the manifold troubles and difficulCongress at Montgomery, convened in extra ties they encountered. They found that their session. He has availed himself of this occa- Government was so imperfect as to be inadesion, as the head and chief of the States who quate to the great ends of all Governments, as have attempted to withdraw themselves from laid down in their Declaration of the 4th of our Federal Union, to "declare the causes July, 1776, and that it had therefore become which impel them to the separation." He says their duty "to alter or abolish it, and to instito the Congress: "The occasion is indeed an tute a new Government, laying its foundation extraordinary one. It justifies me in a brief on such principles and organizing its powers review of the relations heretofore existing be- in such form as to them should seem most liketween us and the States which now unite in ly to effect their safety and happiness." warfare against us, and a succinct statement of the events which have resulted in this warfare; to the end that mankind may pass intelligent and impartial judgment on its motives and objects." When our fathers declared their country's independence, it was not the act of one man; but the instrument bore the signatures of men the story of whose lives is the history of the times in which they lived. This message of Mr. Davis is the authoritative declaration of the Seceding States, and we receive it in the character he has assumed for it. The Convention which assembled in May, 1787, at Philadelphia, and which immortalized itself in the Constitution of the United States, thoroughly reflected the will of those whom they represented. They framed that Constitution in the name and on behalf of the people of the United States, and not of the several States, as separate and distinct sovereignties. In the debates had in that Convention, on the formation of the Constitution, the following language was used by that distinguished son of Virginia, James Madison: The single, naked proposition upon which "Some contend that States are sovereign, rests the whole claim of the right of secession when in fact they are only political societies. is distinctly stated in the second of the "Arti- There is a gradation of power in all societies cles of Confederation" adopted by the original from the lowest corporation to the highest sovThirteen States during the War of the Revolu-ereign. The States never possessed the essention, as framed by the Delegates of the United States of America in Congress assembled, on the 9th of July, 1778. This article is in these words: "Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled." tial rights of sovereignty. These were always vested in Congress. Their voting as States in Congress is no evidence of sovereignty. The State of Maryland voted by counties, did this make the counties sovereign? The States at present are only great corporations, having the power of making by-laws, and these are effectual only if they are not contradictory to the General Confederation." |