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Gen. Beauregard, now in command of the rebel forces in Charleston, has much fame as a tactician.-Harper's Weekly, March 23.

Yes, call them rebels! 'tis the name
Their patriot fathers bore,

And by such deeds they'll hallow it
As they have done before.

At Lexington, and Baltimore,

Was poured the holy chrism;

For Freedom marks her sons with blood,
In sign of their baptism.

Rebels, in proud and bold protest,
Against a power unreal;

A unity which every quest

Proves false as 'tis ideal.

A brotherhood, whose ties are chains,
Which crushes while it holds,
Like the old marble Läocoon
Beneath its serpent folds.

Rebels, against the malice vast,

Malice, that nought disarms,
Which fills the quiet of their homes
With vague and dread alarms.
Against th' invader's daring feet,
Against the tide of wrong,
Which has been borne, in silence borne,
But borne perchance too long.

They would be cowards, did they crouch
Beneath the lifted hand,
Whose very wave, ye seem to think,
Will chill them where they stand.
Yes, call them rebels! 'tis a name

Which speaks of other days,
Of gallant deeds, and gallant men,
And wins them to their ways.

Fair was the edifice they raised,
Uplifting to the skies;

A mighty Samson 'neath its dome
In grand quiescence lies.
Dare not to touch his noble limb,

With thong or chain to bind,
Lest ruin crush both you and him ;-
This Samson is not blind!
NATCHITOCHES, May, 1861.

-N. O. Picayune Supplement, May 2.

VIRGINIA'S MESSAGE TO THE SOUTHERN
STATES.
I.

You dared not think I'd never come;
You could not doubt your Mother;
If traitorous chains had crushed my form,
My soul with yours had hovered.
Yes, children, I have come;
We'll stand together-we'll be one;
Brave dangers, death, and wars begun!

II.

Where should this struggle work and end?
Where should this conflict be?
Where should we all our rights defend,
And gain our liberty?

Upon my soil your swords you'll wield;
Upon my soil your homes you'll shield;
And on my soil your foes shall yield!

III.

Where, but on my mountain's heights,
And on my rivers' banks,-
Where, but 'neath my heavens' lights,
And in my children's camps,
Shall all the blood be shed,
In streams of living red,
And all our foes be dead?

VI.

Upon this earth is there a spot
So fit to give a battle-field?
In all the country, there is not,

Nor one so brave to shield.

If you doubt it, scorn History's pages;
If you doubt it, mark other ages,
And come together for the war that rages!

Then, soldiers brave, come forth!
You sons of noble mothers!
They'll chide you if you're loath,

And yield your homes to others.
Mothers! send them, then, without a tear;
Bid them go, and make all earth revere
Their country's honor and a SOLDIER'S BIER!
-Charleston Evening News, May &

THE STARS AND BARS.
BY A. J. REQUIER.

Fling wide the dauntless banner
To every Southern breeze,
Baptized in flame, with Sumter's name-
A patriot and a hero's fame-

From Moultrie to the seas!

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That it may cleave the morning sun,
And, streaming, sweep the night;
The emblem of a battle won
With Yankee ships in sight.

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We wreathed around the roses

It wears before the world,
And made it bright with storied light
In every scene of bloody fight

Where it has been unfurled;
And think ye, now, the dastard hands
That never yet could hold

Its staff, shall wave it o'er our lands,
To glut the greed of gold?

No! by the truth of Heaven,
And its eternal Sun,
By every sire whose altar-fire
Burns on to beckon and inspire,

It never shall be done!

Before that day, the kites shall wheel

Hail-thick on Northern heights;
And there, our bared, aggressive steel,
Shall counter-sign our rights!

Then, spread the flaming banner

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SOUTHERN OPINIONS.

From the Charleston Mercury, April 30.

The bug-bear of civil war need frighten no one. We are not engaged in civil war, and, thank Heaven! all danger of that most dreadful of human scourges is past. It almost reconciles us to the delay of the Convention. That delay has made Virginia a unithas made the whole South a unit. The natives of the South are leagued and confederated to repel Northern invasion, and establish Southern independ

ence.

ent.

Not for an hour since the first white man set his foot on American soil have the people of the United States been one people. From the beginning, each colony had its separate and distinct laws and institutions, and its separate Government. We have planted and have grown up as distinct and different peoples and nations; and the difference and distinction between us have been increasing and widening from the day of our birth until the present hour. Virginia and Pennsylvania would be no civil war, A war between because we are separate nations; far less, then, is a war between the North and the South. cially and politically as distinct a people from the We are soNorth, as from France or England. The people of the two sections have ever hated each other, not merely because their laws, customs, manners, and institutions are different; but more still, because their races, their blood, their ancestry, were differThe people of the South belong to the brave, impulsive, hospitable, and generous Celtic race; the people of the North to the cold, phlegmatic Teutonic race. We include the old Greek and Roman among the Celtic races;-and also the Anglo-Normans, whose cleanly habits, language, laws, and personal appearance, prove beyond a doubt that they were of Latin origin. The South was settled by Anglo-NorApril 23.-Massachusetts and Rhode Island have and Spaniards. These were all Celts, all belonging mans, Welshmen, Scotchmen, Irishmen, Frenchmen, won the praise and the blessing of all men. sons of Massachusetts lay dead in the streets of Bal- Few Teutons and few Anglo-Saxons (who are of TeuThe to what may be classed as Mediterranean people. timore on the anniversary of the battle of Lexingtonic extract) settled in the South. What Teutonic ton, before a single regiment of New York had crossed the border between the slave and the free States. Soldiers of Massachusetts have made their way to Havre de Grace, seized a steamboat, reached Annapolis, and taken a position by which they could keep open a road to Washington, before a single troop of New York soldiers had found a passage into the enemy's country. and Rhode Island have been sent by sea, and were Troops from Massachusetts thrown into Fort Monroe, commanding Norfolk,

O'er mountain, lake, and plain !
Before its bars, degraded Mars
Has kissed the dust with all his stars,
And will be struck again;
For could its triumph now be stayed
By hell's prevailing gates,
A sceptered Union would be made
The grave of sovereign States.

-N. O. Delta, May 5.

blood did settle in the South, has been diluted and
neutralized by frequent intermarriage with our Anglo-
Norman families. Every schoolboy knows that the
Mediterranean races have almost monopolized the
chivalry of the world, and, until within the last three
hundred years, quite monopolized its civilization.
The people of the South belong to a different and
superior race from those of the North.

show that we have never been one people, and that
It suffices, however, for our present purpose to

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the war between us is no civil or fratricidal war, but
a very natural, orthodox, and proper war, if there
We want to see peace estab-
can be any such war.
lished as soon as possible; and to effect that purpose
we should rain down our blows as fast and furious as
possible, and not permit ourselves to be unnerved
and paralyzed by the raw-head-and-bloody-bone cry
of civil war. The people of the two sections gene-
rally live at great distance from each other, and have
intermarried very little, as well from this cause as
from difference of institutions, difference of race, and
mutual dislike growing out of those differences.

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Davis was a Traitor, Disunion was Treason, and the
Southern Confederacy a conglomeration of every
thing that was weak, wicked, and absurd. But no
rapping spirits ever turned the tables like those that
The cannon of Fort Sumter an-
Lincoln's Proclamation evoked from the vasty deep
of revolution.
nounced to all the world that the Baboon of Illinois
had no more nuts for Virginia monkeys; and when
once fully up to the idea that henceforth the star of
empire had taken a Southern track; that there were
patrons in Montgomery; that place and pay, if any
where, must be searched on this side of the Potomac,
and earned by devotion to State Rights-there was a
revival in the church politic such as no camp meet-

We wish to make peace with them as soon as possible and to keep peace with them, by having in the future nothing to do with them.-Richmond Ex-ing ever saw. When McDowall Moore can sign him

aminer.

self" sinner saved" at the bottom of an Ordinance to unite Virginia to a rebel Confederacy of slaveowners, and Bursted Baldwin inspects the troops that are to take Washington and march on Boston-who may despair of getting to glory? No heard-of bison ever went over a precipice with precipitancy like that of our mummied Federalists and galvanized Submissionists plunging into the Southern Confederacy. It is a race to Montgomery-office is at Montgomeryand the devil take the hindmost.-Richmond Ex

It is important that we of the South, at least, should understand the nature of this war fully. Many of us are too prone to take our enemies at their word, and look upon this war as one that must be marked with all the terrible convulsions and unnatural horrors of a civil strife. It is time to realize the fact, that we are engaged in a foreign war; that the Government at Washington represents a foreign power, which aims at our subjugation; that we have all the rights, and owe all the duties of an indeCONTRABAND OF WAR, CONSTIPATION, AND COMBUSpendent people placed in a state of belligerency ; and that we have nothing to apprehend from civil TION.-The Secretary of the Treasury at Washington war so long as we are a united people, able to main-has added to his list of contraband of war articles the tain and worthy to enjoy our independence.

By doing this we will get rid of much morbid feeling, produced by delusive names and sophistical confusion of ideas in regard to the existing contest. Are we a homogeneous people? Are we free? Are Have we a common Government to we united? which we render cordial allegiance, and which we are ready to defend with patriotic resolution? If so, no civil war can exist within our borders. We know where the enemy is, and who he is. He is on the

He is the other side of the Potomac and the Ohio. cnemy of our country, of our property, of our institutions, and our homes. Let us front him manfully,

and we shall come out of the conflict as safe and triumphant, as he shall come out of it discomfited and humiliated.-New Orleans Daily Delta.

LET THE DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST.-Let us see Now who shall get South fastest-farthest-first. that the word to bounce is come, let us know who can jump the biggest summersault with the most proOf all Secessionists that were ever digious energy. seen, it is certain that the Union-shriekers make the best. Beyond other fire-eaters, are Submissionists fierce. Those who have risked every thing and dared every thing in the late struggle for Liberty and Independence and long before it was begun, for Southern rights and Virginia's honor-are utterly confounded and struck dumb by the fiery enthusiasm of those who were lately denouncing them as rebels ripe for hemp, Southern rights as sedition, and State sovereignty a blasphemy against the Constitution. The natural congratulations of the conquerors in the fight are drowned in the shouts of triumph raised by the vanquished; and the world has lived to see that Lost Principle, to the victors belong the spoils,-displaced by this other, that from the victors shall the spoils be taken! Long was belief, and deep was once the conviction, that the shriek of "Union the winning cry; and just so long as that belief endured, it was written in the Book of Judas that

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following:-" Mercury in all its compounds, chlorate
of potash, muriatic acid, chloride of potash, nitrate
of soda, chloride of potassium, potash and pearlash,
and nitric acids." You doubtless remember, Messrs.
Editors, how a member of the Plymley family was
once disturbed, when a British minister undertook
thus to interfere with the bowels of mankind, and
the inalienable right of people to take medicine.
Old Peter Plymley, with commendable indignation,
described it as an attempt "to bring the French to
reason by keeping them without rhubarb," and to
"exhibit to mankind the awful spectacle of a nation
46 This," said old Peter,
deprived of neutral salts."
"is not the dream of a wild apothecary, indulging in
his own opinion; this is not the distempered fancy
of a pounder of drugs, delirious from smallness of
What a sublime thought, that no
profit.
purge can be taken between the Weser and the Ga-
ronne; that the bustling pestle is still, the canorous
When
mortar mute, and the bowels of mankind locked up
for fourteen degrees of latitude.
was this great plan of conquest and constipation fully
developed? In whose mind was first engendered the
idea of destroying the pride and plasters of France?
Without castor oil they might, for some months, to
be sure, have carried on a lingering war; but can
they do without bark? Will the people live under a
Will they bear the loss of mercury?
Government whose antimonial powders cannot be
procured?
There's the rub.' Depend upon it, the absence of
Materia Medica will soon bring them to their senses,
and the cry of Bourbon and Bolus burst forth from
the Baltic to the Mediterranean."

Now, Messrs Editors, I should like to know where
our Secretary took his degrees in Chemistry and
What is there about the
Pharmacy? Why this war upon Chlorides, Nitrates,
Muriatic and Nitric Acids?
Chloride of Potassium to make it a contraband of
war? Its principal use is in the manufacture of
Alum; and the Confederate troops cannot have
much use for that, unless the Union forces intend to

69

set the Secessionists on fire, and prohibit the use of brilliance and breadth of flash are said to have shown Alum in order to prevent the Southerners from making their clothes and bodies fire-proof. I can under-nance have decided against the adoption of this exa terrific intensity. But the British Board of Ordstand the objection to Chlorate of Potash, because that makes a terribly explosive compound, being the chief agent in the manufacture of percussion powder. But it is a dangerous article to handle, and why not let the Southerners have it, and blow themselves sky-high with it? But the prohibition in this particular amounts to nothing. The Muriatic Acid is prohibited in order to prevent the Confederate army from manufacturing Chlorine gas, by which Chlorates and Chlorides are made. Muriatic Acid is not only not essential to the manufacture of Chlorine, but it is not used at all in making that article on a large scale. It is easily made with manganese, table salt, and unconcentrated sulphuric acid. This produces Chlorine, and neither of these articles is prohibited. The manufacture of Chlorine from the Binoxide of Manganese and Muriatic Acid is so perilous, owing to the action of the acid on the lead, and the evolution of Hydrogen gas, by which a spontaneous explosive mixture of Chlorine is produced, that the attention of the Secretary is respectfully asked as to the utility of preventing the seceding States from blowing themselves up. Why prohibit them from using the dangerous articles, and allow them free access to means unattended with any peril? And why prohibit Potash, when it can easily be manufactured wherever wood can be obtained? The small quantity of Chlorine and of Potash needed for war purposes, can be obtained without the use of the Secretary's interdicted articles, and might be dispensed, as the authorities of Massachusetts sold whiskey some years since-for medicinal purposes.

plosive article for fire-arms, for reasons already given. It is a clear case to one of the Plymley family, that Secretary Chase, if he designs evil to the Southern Confederacy, should encourage the transit of articles for the manufacture of gun-cotton. It would be likely to injure the Confederate more than the Union armies. perfect of all explosive materials for fire-arms. It Gunpowder is by far the most manageable and is very curious that it was invented by a priest, and greatly improved by an English Episcopal bishop. Watson, of Llandaff, and George III. once twitted the soldiers of the gospel of peace about the gunpowder direction of his mental powers. great improvement is due to what is called "cylinder" charcoal, made by distilling wood free of resin, The last in iron cylinders, thus gathering its volatile products. Gunpowder made of this charcoal is so strong, that the charges for this used in ordnance were reduced nearly one-third, as compared with gunpowder made with ordinary charcoal. read to the Royal Institution, showed the importance of time in the production of the effects of gunpowMr. Faraday, in a paper der. If it exploded as instantaneously as fulminating mercury, or those terrible explosives, chloride of nitrogen or iodine, it would be useless for its present applications. It would go the wrong way. For example: Mr. Faraday placed on a plate a small particle of the iodide of nitrogen, and touched it with a long stick. The parts in immediate contact with the iodide were shattered, the end of the stick was shivered, and the spot in the plate, covered with the The prohibition against Nitric Acid and its com- passed through it. Yet the stick was not lifted by iodide, was drilled through as though a bullet had pounds can answer no very useful purpose. The cir- the explosion. The merit of gunpowder is, that it cular explains that Nitric Acid is prohibited because lifts and projects the materials in front of it, and it can be used in the manufacture of gun-cotton. thus acquires its force. Instantaneous as the effects Why should the Secretary discourage the manufac- seem to be, the explosive force "does not reach its ture of this article? Its use is attended with a good intensity until the space it occupies has been endeal of peril to those who handle it. For war pur-larged by that through which the ball has been proposes it cannot be compared with gunpowder. It is much less tractable, very perilous in itself, and terrible on weapons. It has much more force than gunpowder, and does not make smoke, but it has disadvantages that counterbalance all these qualities. It may ignite from percussion, or even spontaneously, or it may be decomposed by the moisture of the atmosphere, or even spontaneously, and thus become worthless. Its explosive force is subject to great variations, and the great danger attending its manufacture has caused the almost universal abandonment of attempts at making the article. The velocity of its combustion is too great for all fire-arms, except those of unusual strength and the smallest bore. If it gives out no smoke, it gives out something more deleterious-acid fumes, which destroy health. Then, again, cotton is a fibrous body, and the physical conditions of a fibrous body are strongly opposed to its use in fire-arms.

The projectile power of gun-cotton is nearly or quite double that of gunpowder. When prepared by the American method, by treating Schonbein's gun-cotton with a saturated solution of Chlorate of Potash, it acquires a remarkable force. A pistol loaded with one grain of this cotton has driven a ball through a yellow pine board one inch thick, at the distance of twenty feet.

At the siege of Moultan, in India, gun-cotton was used for the first time for military purposes, and the

pelled during the first moment of ignition. Its expansive force is thus brought down and kept below that which the breech of the gun can bear, whilst an accumulating, safe, and efficient momentum is communicated to the ball, producing the precise effects of gunnery." Fortress Monroe has a powder made expressly for it The inventor of the monster gun at on these principles: It is very coarse-grained, or it is made in perforated cakes, to secure the results just mentioned. But although the most perfect explosive article for war, it is wasted on a grand scale. In one day at Sebastopol the Russians fired 13,000 rounds of shot and shell, and the only result was the wounding of three men. At Ciudad Rodrigo, 74,987 pounds of gunpowder were consumed in thirty hours and a half; at Badajoz, 228,830 pounds in 104 hours, and this from the great guns only. I appeal to you, Messrs. Editors, should not the Secretary furmanufacturing gun-cotton! nish all possible facilities to the Confederacy for

mercury for percussion powder and caps, mercury is In order to prevent the manufacture of fulminating prohibited; but why does the Secretary order an interdiction upon all the compounds of the article? salivated? Are our teeth to remain wedged in our Are we no longer to enjoy the privilege of being with the "divine remedy"? Are inflammations to jaws? Are sluggish livers no longer to be spurred go on with their deposits and effusions, and are we to

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THE Richmond Dispatch gives the following de-
scription of a company from Western Virginia,
They number one hundred men, all six feet high,
called the Grayson Dare-Devils:-
and unfailing rifle shots. The company consisted of
one hundred and thirty-five, but it is said their com-
mander informed them that only one hundred would
be allowed to come to Richmond; and to decide
which of them should enjoy that desired privilege,
they fired at a mark running, and the hundred who
struck the target nearest to or exactly in the centre,
were accordingly detailed, to the chagrin of the re-
mainder, who were as confident as their comrades
that they could send a ball at every crack through
the vitals of a Lincolnpoop.-N. O. Delta, May 7.

use nothing to cat them up? Must we be under the
combined tyrannies of combustion and constipation?
Is not gunpowder direful enough, without depriving
us of the benignant offices of Mercury? Are we to
be feasted on lead pills, and be debarred from mer-
cury pills? Is daguerreotyping to come to an end
from the Ohio to the Gulf, from the Atlantic to the
Indian country? Are we to use buckets of water or
burnished copper for mirrors? Suppose, Mr. Secre-
tary, your liver were locked up for a week, wouldn't
you want blue pill? Think of going backwards in
civilized medicine, in one class of cases, to times
If, Mr. Secretary, you
antecedent to Paracelsus.
should be stretched in fever, learn the agencies of
chlorate of potash, and then let us have blue pill and
OLD Abe has his intermediate legs in perfect readi-
chlorate of potassa. If our sufferings become intol-
erable, and we order blue pill and calomel from
Wolverhampton, would you be gratified in seeing itness to run. He has not passed a night in the White
convoyed from Woolwich? Are the mountains of House for two weeks, but goes into the barracks to
Cinnabar in California to stand idly kissing the moun- sleep with his armed hirelings all around him. He
tain air, because you forbid mercury to flow through does not so much as take off his boots, that he may
the Mississippi valley? Answer us that, Master Chase. be ready to run at a second's warning.-Petersburg
Why not forbid lancets? They shed blood as well as (Va.) Express, May 4.
Minie balls. Why are we allowed quinine, if we can-
not have mercury? Why is morphine regular, and
chlorate of potassa contraband? Alas, Mr. Secretary,
if you starve us in health, is that any reason why we
should be starved in the food of sickness? Do let the
mercury and chlorate of potassa come in and go
JONATHAN PLYMLEY.
through us.

-Louisville Journal, May 28.

In a town in Indiana, an old man of sixty-five years, with hair and flowing beard as white as snow, implored permission to join the volunteers, but being refused, he went to the barber's, had his beard cropped, and his hair and beard dyed, and again applied for admission. Not being detected, he was received, and being asked his age, replied, "Rising thirty-five."-New Haven Palladium, May 6.

SAVANNAH, GA., April 30.-On the occasion of
the arrival of Mr. A. H. Stephens from Richmond a
large procession was formed, which marched through
the city. They carried, painted on canvas, a repre-
sentation of the American flag, soiled and torn, sus-
pended by a broken flag-staff. Underneath was the
"Receive me."
picture of a grave, with the words,
This outrage upon the flag aroused feelings of deep
disgust and indignation among the still loyal portion
of the citizens; and one gentleman, a venerable pas-
tor of the Seamen's Bethel, openly denounced the
proceedings, declaring that Savannah had been the
first to dishonor the glorious banner of the Union.
On being threatened with violence, he told the
mobocrats, that though he was an old man, he would
defend himself if attacked, and some of them would
bite the dust if they laid their hands on him.-N. Y.
Times, May 8.

Of course every one can understand how Massa-
chusetts is enabled to send so many men to the Lin-
colnitish army. The operative population of the
State is immense. The stagnation of business and
cessation of manufacturing have reduced many thou-
sands of the operative and laboring classes to the
verge of starvation. It is these paupers who are so
abundantly pensioned off on the Federal Government
by State and municipal authorities. The body of the
Massachusetts soldiery are the merest hirelings.-
Charleston Evening News, May 7.

EPIGRAM ON SOUTH CAROLINA.

O Carolina, sister, pray come back;
Scorn not our flag, nor nightly talk of wars,
Should make you feel the stripes and see the stars.
Lest Uncle Sam, once fairly on your track,
-N. Y. Sun, May 8.

THE Charleston Courier gives the following intelligence of matters at the North :

We learn from a passenger from Philadelphia, that one day last week at Havre de Grace, three of the Northern volunteers refused to go any further, assigna war of invasion upon the South. An officer standing as a reason that they did not volunteer to go into ing by instantly cut and hacked two of the men to pieces. A third, who took the same ground, gave vent to a similar expression for the Union, and cut his own throat from ear to ear, rather than allow himself to be hacked to pieces.

Mob law (in New York city) is triumphant, and Southern men, or those known to sympathize with the South, are in constant danger of their lives. Vigilance committees visit the houses of the wealthy, and every man is heavily assessed for the support of the families of those who have volunteered their serThose merchants who refuse, or vices to the Administration. Assessments of $5,000, $3,000, and $2,000, on large houses, are said to be very common. make the slightest hesitation, are threatened with the cleaning out of their stores, and several already have been emptied by the mob. Three men were set upon in Florence Hotel, New York, and two killed, for packing off their clerks, and it is said that several expressing sympathy with the South. Merchants are large manufactories have been stopped, with a view of forcing the operatives into the ranks of the volunteer soldiery.

The Mobile Advertiser says:

They may raise plenty of men-men who prefer enlisting to starvation, scurvy fellows from the back slums of cities, whom Falstaff would not have marched through Coventry with-but these recruits are not soldiers, least of all the soldiers to meet the hot-blooded, thoroughbred, impetuous men of the their rations, not on men, they are-such as marched South. Trencher soldiers, who enlisted to war on

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