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TRAGEDY AT THE MARSHALL HOUSE.

On the 24th of May Alexandria was occupied by the Federals, the Virginia forces evacuating the town, and falling back towards Manassas Junction. The invasion was accomplished under the cover of night. It was attended by an incident which gave a lesson to the enemy of the spirit he was to encounter, and furnished the first instance of individual martyrdom in the war. On one of the hotels of the town, the Marshall House, there was a Confederate flag flying. The proprietor of the hotel, Mr. Jackson, captain of an artillery company in his town, had deliberately declared that under any circumstances he would defend that flag with his life, and had been deaf to the advice of his neighbours not to make his house, by this display, a sign for the enemy's attack. The flag could be seen from a window of the White House in Washington. As a company of Fire Zouaves, at the head of which was Col. Ellsworth, a protégé of Mr. Lincoln, entered the town in the gray of the morning, their commander swore that he would have the flag as his especial prize. He was attended in his adventure by a squad of his men. Having found his way into the hotel, he got through a trap-door to its top, where he secured the obnoxious ensign; but descending the ladder he found facing him a single man in his shirt sleeves, with a double-barrel gun in his hands. is my trophy," exclaimed Ellsworth, displaying the flag on his arm. “And you are mine,” replied Jackson, as he quickly raised his gun, and discharged its contents into the breast of the exultant Federal. Another moment and the brave Virginian was stretched by the side of his antagonist a lifeless corpse; for one of Ellsworth's men had sped a bullet through his brain, and another had thrust a bayonet into his breast as he was in the act of falling.

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In the low country of Virginia, in the vicinity of Fortress Monroe, an affair occurred on the 10th of June, which, though it is not to be ranked as a decisive engagement, was certainly a serious and well-timed check to enemy in this direction. A Federal column, exceeding four thousand men, moved out from Fortress Monroe in the direction of Great Bethel, a church which stood about nine miles on the road leading south from Hampton. The position here had been entrenched by Gen. J. B. Magruder, who had in his command about eighteen hundred men. designed by the enemy to attack the Confederates in their front, while another portion of the column should cross the creek, which ran here, some distance below, and attempt to get into the Confederate work through a gorge which was supposed to be open. The attack in front was easily repulsed, as the Federals never dared to advance from the woods which obscured their position; and when the 1st North Carolina Regiment was ordered forward, the enemy actually broke before this small force got within sixty yards of their position. The column that had crossed the creek advanced with cheers, supposing that they had turned the Confed

erate position; but a volley of musketry put them to flight, and the officer who led them, Major Winthrop, was killed by the bullet of a North Carolina rifleman, as he in vain attempted to rally his men to the charge. The loss of the Confederates in this affair was one man killed and seven wounded; that of the enemy, by their own acknowledgment, was thirty killed and more than one hundred wounded. In the little experience of war on both sides the action of Bethel was rated as a famous battle, and was paraded through many columns of the newspapers. The cotemporary estimate of its importance is ludicrous enough in the light of subsequent events, and in comparison with those monuments of carnage, which were hereafter to appear on the fields of Virginia.

The comparative pause of warlike excitement after the affair of Bethel, and the apparent lull of hostilities, while, in fact, both Governments were making active preparations for the contest, was marked by some interesting demonstrations of public opinion in the North. It might have been noticed in this time, that public attention in the North was measurably turned from military movements to the financial aspects of the war, and to the provisions which the Northern Congress was so soon to be called upon to make, in order to meet present exigencies. A considerable portion of the Northern press appeared to show the same diversion of attention; and their tone might have been noticed to have become decidedly more healthy and prudent in leaving for a time the grosser excitements of war to ponder the vital concerns of the debts, taxes, burdens, and losses consequent upon hostilities.

Some time ago, an ominous growl from Wall street had reached the ear of the Government at Washington. The discontent had since slowly and steadily manifested itself. Combinations were spoken of among Northern capitalists to terminate the war; to grant no more loans or aids to the Government; and to overrule the programme of the politicians at Washington by the superiour power of their money and their commercial interest. The estimates of the Government had indeed become frightful. The cost of the war was rated at ten million dollars a week. Besides this, Congress was to be called upon to make a current annual appropriation for ordinary expenditures and interest on the debt, of at least one hundred and fifty millions of dollars, which indispensable estimate-however the war might be pushed for a time on credit-there could be no possible way of meeting unless by modes of direct taxation, in income taxes, excises, etc. The Northern Government had the most serious reasons to distrust the Wall street combination, and to put itself out of the power of capitalists, who were plainly aggrieved by the prospect, that was now being steadily developed, of a long and expensive war. A Cabinet council was called, and Mr. Secretary Chase proposed a new plan of national loan. It was to make a direct appeal to the people to provide means for the

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prosecution of the war. Outside of the Cabinet, at whose board the plan was reported to have been well received, it met with the most strenuous objections.

In these distresses and embarrassments of the Government, the bellicose elements of the North, resenting all prospects of peace, became more exacting than ever, and even accusatory of the authorities at Washington. The more violent New York papers demanded a vigorous military move. ment on the part of the Government before the meeting of Congress, They accused the Administration of supineness of policy and uncertainty of purpose; and they, even, did not hesitate to charge that the Presiden and his Cabinet were conniving with "the rebels," and had consented to become parties to a negotiation for peace. These heated and ungenerous expressions did not stop here. Personalities were freely indulged in. The President was vilely abused for not having recalled Mr. Harvey, the minister to Portugal, because he had corresponded with the South Carolina authorities during Mr. Buchanan's administration; and Gen. Scott, who was sacrificing for the Northern objects of the war, all that remained to him of the years and honours of a long life, was not spared from an atrocious libel charging him with having offered premiums to "treason" in procuring the restoration to the United States service and the promotion to a lieutenant-colonelcy of Major Emory, a Marylander, who had formerly resigned his command on the Indian frontier.

These dissatisfied utterances, although they may have been but little annoying, personally, to the Government, were significant of other most serious troubles to be apprehended in the conduct of the war. They gave evidence of a sentiment in the North, at once fanatical and formidable, resolved to push the war beyond the avowed objects of the Government, and to resist any termination of it short of the excision or abolition of slavery in the South. This sentiment had, in fact, already become clamorous and exacting. A war short of the abolition of slavery was denounced as a farce, and its mission of defending the Union was openly exchanged in the mouths of fanatics for that of achieving "the rights of humanity." In the mean time indications were obvious enough of the common intention of the belligerents to make the first great battles of the war in Virginia. Here was to open the first great chapter of Carnage-on a theatre at once wide and brilliant ;-filled with the array of armies of two powerful peoples, which brought from their wealth and long seasons of prosperity all that could invest war with destructive power and dramatic display;-occupying a territory noble and inspired in historical memories -the name of which, " Virginia," had ever been a word of magic pride throughout the breadth and length of a continent;-and engaging in the Issues of its imposing drama the liberties, or, at least, the independence of more than eight millions of men.

On the lines of the Potomac, Gen. Scott had gathered one of the largest armies that had ever been seen in America. Nothing was left undone to complete its preparations; in numbers it was all that was desired; and it was provided with the best artillery in the world. All the regulars east of the Rocky Mountains, to the number of several thousand, collected since February, in the city of Washington, from Jefferson Barracks, from St. Louis, and from Fortress Monroe, were added to the immense force of volunteers that had been brought down to the lines of the Potomac. The following is the estimate of the force of this army at this time, obtained from official sources: Fifty-five regiments of volunteers, eight companies of regular infantry, four of marines, nine of regular cavalry, and twelve batteries, forty-nine guns. It was placed at the command of Gen. McDowell, who came to this important post of action with the reputation of the greatest and most scientific general in the North, but who was to run, indeed, a very short career of Yankee popularity.

On the Confederate side, preparations for the coming contest were quite as busy, if not so extensive. At the beginning of June, Gen. Beauregard was in consultation with President Davis and Gen. Lee, at Richmond, while, by means of couriers, they held frequent communication with Gen. Johnston, then in command near Harper's Ferry. The result was, that a military campaign was decided upon, embracing defensive operations in North Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley, and the concentration of an army, under Beauregard, at the Manassas Gap railroad junction, and in the immediate locality. The position taken by Gen. Beauregard was one of great strength; and probably no better for defensive purpose could be found in the whole State of Virginia. It was about midway between the eastern spur of the Blue Ridge and the Potomac below Alexandria; the right wing stretched off towards the waters of the Occoquan through a wooded country; the left was a rolling table-land readily commanded from the successive elevations until it broke into a rough and intricate country that no army could pass without the greatest difficulty. The intervening country was commanded by Beauregard's army so perfectly that there was scarcely a possibility of its being turned. A small stream, called Bull Run, ran in this locality, nearly from west to east, to its confluence with the Occoquan River, about twelve miles from the Potomac, and draining a considerable scope of country, from its source in Bull Run Mountain, to within a short distance of the Potomac at Occoquan. At Mitchell's Ford, the stream was about equi-distant between Centreville and Manassas, some six miles apart. There were a number of other fords; but the banks of the stream were rocky and steep.

Gen. Beauregard was fresh from the glories of Sumter. A brief account of this man, who was, indeed, the central figure in the early period of the war, will be interesting here. He was now forty-five years

old. His family was of French extraction, and had settled in Louisiana in the reign of Louis XV. In 1838, he was graduated at West Point, taking the second honours in a class of forty-five. He entered the Mexican war as a lieutenant, obtained two brevets in it, the last that of major; and was subsequently placed by the Government in charge of the construction of some public buildings at New Orleans, as well as the fortifica tions on and near the mouth of the Mississippi. About the beginning of the year 1861, he was appointed superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point; but the appoinment was revoked within forty-eight hours by President Buchanan, for the spiteful reason, as is alleged, that Senator Slidell of Louisiana, the brother-in-law of the nominee, had given offence by a secession speech at Washington. Subsequently, Major Beauregard resigned his commission in the service of the United States, and was appointed by Gov. Moore of Louisiana, Colonel of Engineers in the Provisional Army of the South; from which position, as we have seen, he was called by President Davis to the defence of Charleston.

Gen. Beauregard was singularly impassioned in defence of the cause which he served. He hated and despised "the Yankee;" and it must be confessed was the author of some silly letters in the early part of the war, deriding the power of the enemy. That the South would easily whip the North was his constant assertion, even if the first "had for arms only pitch-forks and flint-lock muskets." Of the army which Gen. Scott was marshalling on the borders of Virginia, he wrote that the enemies of the South were "little more than an armed rabble, gathered together hastily on a false pretence, and for an unholy purpose, with an octogenarian at its head!"

Beauregard's personal appearance could scarcely escape notice. He was a small, brown, thin man, with features wearing a dead expression, and hair prematurely whitened. His manners were distinguished and severe, but not cold; they forbade intimacy; they had the abruptness without the vivacity of the Frenchman; but they expressed no conceit, and were not repulsive. He had ardour, a ceaseless activity, and an indomitable power of will. His notions of chivalry were somewhat stilted, and he had fought his first battle with an interchange of courtesies that induced a Frenchman to exclaim in Paris: "Quelle idée chevalresque ! On voit que vous avez profité, vous autres Américains, de l'exemple Français. Ce Général Beauregard port un nom Français! It is not to be wondered that Gen. Beauregard, with the eclat of the first victory of the war, and the attractions of a foreign name and manners, should have been the ladies' favourite among the early Southern generals. He was constantly receiving attentions from them, in letters, in flags, and in hundreds of pretty missives. His camp-table was often adorned with presents of rare flowers, which flanked his maps and plans, and a bouquet