sent to the Mound City Hospital to discharge her suffering passengers.

Among

the wounded of the colored troops are Captain Porter, Lieutenant Libberts, and Adjutant Lemming.

"Six guns were captured by the rebels and carried off, including two ten-pound Parrotts and two twelve-pound howitzers. A large amount of stores were destroyed and carried away. The intention of the rebels seemed to be to evacuate the place and move on towards Memphis."

PADUCAH SAFE-THE REBEL INHUMANITY AT FORT PILLOW CONFIRMED.

"CAIRO, April 15.-No boats have been allowed to leave here for points below Columbus since the first news of the Fort Pillow affair was received.

"The attack on Paducah, yesterday, proved to be a mere raid for plunder, made by a couple hundred of men, who were shelled out by the forts and gunboats after occupying a portion of the city in squads for about an hour. They left taking away with them a number of horses and considerable plunder, and leaving behind half a dozen killed and wounded. No one was hurt on our side.

"Several of the guns captured by Forrest at Fort Pillow were spiked before falling into his hands. The others were turned upon the gunboat No. 7, which, from exhaustion of ammunition, having fired some three hundred rounds, was compelled to withdraw. Although only tin-clad, she received but slight injury.

"General Lee arrived and assumed the command at the beginning of the battle, previous to which Chalmers directed the movements.

"Forrest, with the main force, retired after the fight to Brownsville, taking with him the funds he had captured.

"While the steamer Platte Valley lay under a flag of truce, taking on the wounded, the rebel officers, among them Chalmers, went aboard, and some of our officers showed them great deference, drinking with them and showing other marks of courtesy. Prominent among them is said to have been a certain officer of an Illinois cavalry regiment."

"ST. LOUIS, April 15.-A correspondent of the Union of this city, who was on board the steamer Platte Valley at Fort Pillow, gives an even more appalling description of the fiendishness of the rebels than our Cairo dispatch.

"Many of our wounded, he says, were shot in the hospital, and the remainder were driven out of the building, which was burned.

“After the battle, the rebels went over the field and shot the negroes who had not died from their previous wounds.

"Many of those who deserved to be treated as prisoners of war, as the rebels said, were ordered to fall into line, when they were inhumanly shot down.

"Of the three hundred and fifty colored troops, not more than fifty-six escaped the massacre, and not one officer that commanded them survives. Only four officers of the 13th Tennessee escaped death. The loss of the 13th Tennessee regiment was eight hundred killed, and the remainder wounded or captured.

"General Chalmers told the correspondent of the Union, that although it was against the policy of his 'Government' to spare the negro soldiers and their officers, he had done all in his power to stop the carnage. At the same time, he said he believed it was right.

"Another officer said our white troops would have been protected, had they not been on duty with the negroes.

"While the rebels endeavored to conceal their loss, it was evident that they had suffered severely.

"Colonel Reed Amey, of the Tennessee regiment, was mortally wounded. "Two or three well-filled hospitals were a short distance in the country." "CAIRO, April 15.-Two negro soldiers, who were wounded at Fort Pillow, and buried by the rebels, afterwards worked themselves out of their graves and are among those brought up on the steamer Platte Valley. They are now in the hospital at Mound City.

"The officers of the Platte Valley deserve great credit from the military authorities for landing at Fort Pillow, at imminent risk, and taking our wounded aboard."

Far from intimidating the free blacks and escaped_contrabands, the report of these atrocities only served to stimulate en

listments. Among the songs which sprang up at the time, was that of "A Soldier in the Colored Brigade.'

Under all the balderdash and buffoonery of these songs, written for the negro, half in earnest and half in ridicule, lies a solemn fact that the black brigades were raised, and that in them thousands went forth willingly to die.

The allusion to "a colonel in the colored brigade,” in the song "A Soldier in the Colored Brigade," may recall to some readers an amusing retort, which dates from the spring of 1863. A white soldier, meeting a colored recruit, is said to have asked him: "Well, my warrior, have you a black colonel to your regiment?" With great gravity the contraband replied, “Ño— have you?"

Great as was the opposition to black soldiers, the army soon found out a practical argument in their favor, which was thus versified by the celebrated Miles O'Reilly, also well known as Colonel Halpin, a littérateur of New York, subsequently the commander of an Irish regiment, and at present, I believe, a commissioner for the United States :

MILES O'REILLY ON THE "NAYGURS."

"Some tell me 'tis a burning shame

To make the naygurs fight;

An' that the thrade of bein' kilt
Belongs but to the white;

But as for me, upon me sowl!
So liberal are we here,

I'll let Sambo be murthered in place of myself

On every day in the year!

On every day in the year, boys,

And every hour in the day,

The right to be kilt I'll divide wid him,
An' divil a word I'll say.

"In battle's wild commotion
I shouldn't at all object.

If Sambo's body should stop a ball
That was comin' for me direct;
And the prod of a Southern bagnet,
So liberal are we here,

I'll resign and let Sambo take it

On every day in the year!

On every day in the year, boys,

An' wid none of your nasty pride,

All my right to a Southern bagnet prod
Wid Sambo I'll divide.

"The men who object to Sambo

Should take his place and fight;

And it's betther to have a naygur's hue

Than a liver that's wake an' white;

Though Sambo's black as the ace of spades,
His finger a trigger can pull,

And his eye runs sthraight on the barrel-sights
From under its thatch of wool!

So hear me all, boys, darlings,

Don't think I'm tippin' you chaff,

The right to be kilt I'll divide wid him,

And give him the largest half!"

Some of the contrabands have in this war attained "a shocking state of independence," and one far transcending the most sanguine hopes of the wildest "shriekers" of the early day. Tossed right and left, without home or earthly tie, they are, in many instances, admirably adapted to begin a new social condition-for their old one is "very much played out, indeed." During the winter of 1863, a contraband of this abandoned species came into the Federal lines in North Carolina, and marched up to the officer of the day to report himself, whereupon the following colloquy ensued :—

"What's your name?"

"My name's Sam."

"Sam what?"

"No, sah-not Sam Watt. I'se just Sam."

"What's your other name?"

"I hasn't got no oder name, sah! I'se Sam-dats all.” "What's your master's name?"

"I'se got no massa, now-massa runned away-yah! yah! I'se free nigger, now."

"Well, what's your father's and mother's name?"

"I'se got none, sah-neber had none. I'se jist Sam—ain't nobody else."

"Haven't you any brothers and sisters ?"

"No, sah-neber had none. No brudder, no sister, no fader, no mudder, no massa-nothin' but Sam. When you see Sam, you see all dere is of us.'

From their habits of ranging about at night, the slaves are enabled to escape observation, and, at the same time, collect information which has many a time been of the greatest value to their friends" the Federals." Sometimes, while thus scouting, the black has had very narrow escapes. An instance of this kind was detailed in "a private letter," which, however, found its way into the newspapers, in the summer of 1863 :

"Here in West Point, Virginia, there is a negro scout, named Claiborne, in the employ of the Union forces, who is a shrewd hand at escaping from the rebels. He is evidently a full-blooded African, with big lips and flat nose, and, having lived in this vicinity all his life, is familiar with the country, which renders him a very valuable aid.

“On Claiborne's last trip inside the enemy's lines, after scouting around as much as he wished, he picked up eight chickens and started for camp. His road led past the house of a secesh doctor named Roberts, who knew him, and who ordered him to stop, which, of course, Claiborne had no idea of doing, and kept on, when the doctor fired on him and gave chase, shouting at the top of his voice. The negro was making good time towards camp, when, all at once, he was confronted by a whole regiment of soldiers, who ordered him to halt. For a moment the scout was dumbfounded, and thought his hour had come, but the next he sang out:"The Yankees are coming! the Yankees are coming!'

"Where? where ?' inquired the rebels.

"Just up in front of Dr. Roberts's house, in a piece of woods. Dr. Roberts sent me down to tell you to come up quick, or they'll kill the whole of us.' "Come in!-Come into camp!' said the soldiers.

"'No-no,' said the cute African, 'I've got to go down and tell the cavalry pickets, and can't wait a second.' So off he sprang, with a bound, running for dear life-the rebs, discovering the ruse, chasing him for three miles, and he running six, when he got safely into camp, but minus his chickens, which he had dropped at the first fire."

A WELCOME HOME TO THE ARMY, 1865.

BY E. FOXTON.

STREAM out, flag and pennon!

Peal, bell, drum, and cannon!

From Death's choking jaws, back our warriors they come.
Fill up all the highways!

Crowd squares, roofs, and by-ways

With shouts and hosannas we welcome you home!

Huzzas and hosannas!

From swamps and savannahs,

From picket and battle-field, fortress and camp,
Black mines and red trenches,

And faint mortal stenches,

Where the wounded all night saw the hospital-lamp.

When States were forsaken,

By States they had taken

For better for worse, you espoused their woes.
When Freedom was starving,

You would not be carving

A daintier thing than the strength of her foes.

Our Union in anguish

Mid robbers did languish;

Your metals most precious were iron and lead.
Poor soldiers, to wealth now

Come; sick ones, to health now;

Come, lone ones to love, from Belle Isle, to be fed.

The dust, Treason's biting,
That forced you to fighting;

And Washington, Marion, and Sumter, to-day,
From the skies smiling o'er us,

Your stars watch before us,

And dare their spoiled children to tear them away.

Come, ushered with blessings,

To peaceful possessings

Of altars and hearths, brothers, sons, husbands, sires;

When your babes' babes are hoary,

They'll tell your old story

To the grandchildren climbing their knees by the fires.

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE

AND

NOTES ON NEW BOOKS.

Now that the great war is ended, all are anxious to read, and many pens are engaged in writing, the record of those great deeds which could not properly be made during the heat and excitement of the contest. Among the forthcoming books is “GRANT AND HIS CAMPAIGNS: A Military Biography," by the Editor of this Magazine. It will be a handsome octavo volume of 500 pages, with many steel portraits of the most distinguished generals, and rendered clear by maps and diagrams, most carefully prepared and fully illustrative of the letter-press. We hope it will not be deemed unbecoming in the editor to promise the public a truthful, clear, and unprejudiced narrative, prepared from full materials, with the approbation and sanction of General Grant,

Another work of remarkable interest, just about to make its appearance, is "SHERMAN AND HIS CAMPAIGNS," a volume of the same size, with similar illustrations. These extraordinary campaigns have been ably written out by Colonel S. M. Bowman, a warm friend of General Sherman's, and Lieutenant-Colonel R. B. Irwin, late Chief of Staff in the Department of the Gulf, whose facile and clever pen has produced for the reader of this Magazine the excellent papers entitled "Secking the Bubble." These works are to be sold by subscription, and all orders will be filled in the order in which they are received. The sale promises to be a very large one. The above works are published by Mr. C. B. Richardson, 540 Broadway, New York.

One of the most interesting books which we have lately received is Colonel Albert G. Brackett's "History of the United States Cavalry, from the Formation of the Federal Government to the First of June, 1863." It is a 12mo volume of 337 pages, and it has the merit of clearness and condensation. The cavalry fights are described in a right soldierly manner, with very little of the newspaper humbug. The author is a distinguished cavalryman, and writes from personal knowledge, on a subject near his heart; if the work has the imperfections which he acknowledges in his preface, we have not discovered them, and he therefore has the merit of modesty, with which to crown his success. The history of our cavalry during our recent war is one to be proud of: improvised armies are proverbially poor; improvised cavalry is worthless. When, therefore, it became necessary to put a large cavalry force in the field, of which the men could not ride, and the horses were untrained, the country was astonished and disappointed at their want of success; but discipline and service made them veterans, and before the war ended, they were splendid; the rebels could not compete with them at all.