"Ah yes! But Captain Meade was with us last night, and we know all about you, Sir." "All my failings?"

which came upon those who fell prisoners into without the laurels, Posey; I haven't even a the enemy's hands. Some who had followed bird." the raid through all its weary course, with the hope of freedom, lost all hope now. One who had given all for that hope, even her own flesh and blood, found the illusion vanish in the sulphurous smoke. Yes; Milly Mo stretched out frantic hands, her great pathetic eyes, where hope lay dead, aimlessly wandering in their gaze, her quivering lips vainly trying to syllable her child's name. Had she staked her childnay more, her soul's salvation-in that childforsaking, God-forsaking sin, for the sake of freedom, and lost? Ay, it may be lost, because of the sin; for the noble end does not justify the vile means with the Eternal God.

When next Robert took Posey's fresh little hand in his he said, "I have come back

"Yes; he said, for a steady, reliable, truly courageous fellow, give him you. But, Robert," she continued, nestling closer to him as she spoke, "I believe I love you better for taking up that forlorn little negro baby in your arms and carrying him to a place-better than for any thing else. I shall always believe and maintain that the bravest are the tenderest. You must get that child some time."

"So, Miss Posey, you despise my laurels, which have been growing rapidly for the last few moments, and prefer a 'Chip."'

"Even so, Robert, and I want that very 'Chip' for my wedding present."

Monthly

UNITED STATES.

Record of Current Events.

his course in entering upon the convention with UR Record closes on the 9th of June. It in-Johnston, which was disavowed by the Govern

OUR Record closes or the he remaining armies ment.

of the Confederacy, the capture of the principal members of the late Confederate Government, and furnishes indications of the policy of the administration of President Johnson.

The essential points are that in their first interview Johnston acknowledged that the Confederate cause was lost, and that every life sacrificed after Lee's surrender was the highest possible crime; that the terms granted to Lee were magnanimous ; but that he wished, in addition, some general concessions that would enable him to control his followers until they could be got back to the neighborhood of their homes, thereby saving North Carolina from the devastation which would result from turning the men loose and unprovided, and by the pursuit of these scattered bodies through the State. All of Sherman's generals were in favor of his granting, as far as lay in his power, such concessions. At the next meeting Johnston satisfied him that he had

The surrender of Johnston's army took place on the 26th of April, not on the 29th, as erroneously printed in our last Record. General Johnston states that on that day the returns showed that his whole force of infantry and artillery, present and absent, was 70,510, only 18,578 being present, of whom 14,179 were effective, besides which there were 2000 or 3000 cavalry. Twenty days before (April 6) Sherman estimated that Johnston had with him, "well in hand," 35,000 infantry and artillery, and from 6000 to 10,000 cavalry. In the interval three-power to disband all the Confederate armies, as well fourths of his army had scattered. Many of these, however, came back and took the prescribed parole. The whole number paroled by General Hartsuff was fully 30,000; among these were "Generals" Johnston and Beauregard; "Lieu tenant-Generals" Hardee, Stewart, and S. D. Lee; "Major-Generals" Lomax, Butler, Brown, Hoke, Cheatham, Loring, Walthal, Anderson, Hill, and Stevenson, with their respective staffs; and Rear - Admiral Semmes, having the rank of Brigadier-General. Besides the foregoing, the surrender of Johnston included those of all the Army of the Tennessee, which were made by the various officers actually in command of different portions. Johnston, in announcing to his army the terms of surrender, said that "the object of the convention is pacification, to the extent of the authority of the commanders who made it. Events in Virginia, which broke every hope of success by war, imposed on its General the duty of sparing the blood of this gallant army, and saving our country from further devastation, and our people from ruin." In his farewell address, he exhorted his soldiers to “discharge the obligations of good and peaceful citizens to the powers as well as you have performed the duties of soldiers in the field."-General Sherman, in his report, presents an elaborate and wholly successful justification of

as those under his own immediate command. What he especially dreaded was that the States would be dismembered and deprived of any political existence, and that the absolute disarming of his men would leave the South powerless and exposed to the depredations of assassins and robbers. Sherman believed that in granting concessions which would provide against these evils he was acting in accordance with the policy of the President; and when, in the midst of the negotiations, he received intelligence of the murder of Lincoln, he saw no good reason to change his course, but thought to manifest his respect for his memory by following, in a case where the interests of living millions were concerned, the policy which he thought Lincoln would have approved, or at least not rejected with disdain. In any case, he adds, "The memorandum" was expressly, on its very face, "a mere basis for reference to the President, to enable him, if he chose, at one blow to dissipate the power of the Confederacy which had threatened the national safety for years. It admitted of modification, alteration, and change. It had no appearance of an ultimatum, and by no false reasoning can it be construed into a usurpation of powers on my part." General Sherman speaks indignantly of the harsh manner in which this basis was set aside by the Government, con

MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS.

trasting it with the conduct of Grant, who, having been ordered to direct military movements, kept the operations in the hands of Sherman; gave him the honor of concluding the final negotiations with Johnston, and of receiving his surrender. "There," says Sherman, "was surrendered to us the second great army of the so-called Confederacy; and although undue importance has been given to the socalled negotiations which preceded it, and a rebuke and public disfavor cast upon me wholly unwarranted by the facts, I rejoice in saying that it was accomplished without further ruin and devastation to the country; without the loss of a single life to the gallant men who had followed me from the Mississippi to the Atlantic; and without subjecting brave men to the ungracious task of pursuing a fleeing foe who did not want to fight. As for my self, I know my motives, and challenge the instance during the last four years, when an armed and defiant foe stood before me, that I did not go in for a fight; and I would blush for shame if I had ever insulted or struck a fallen foe. I still adhere to my then opinions, that by a few general concessions'glittering generalities'-all of which must and will be conceded to the organized States of the South, there would not be this day an armed battalion opposed to us within the broad area of the dominions of the United States."

cept the terms of surrender given to Lee, Johnston,
and Taylor. It was thought that an irregular war-
By the
fare might be waged there for years, until the en-
ergies of the Union should be worn out.
20th of April Kirby Smith had learned of the sur-
render of Lee's army. From his head-quarters at
Shreveport he addressed on the 21st a flaming gen-
eral order to his troops:

"Soldiers of the Trans-Mississippi Army," he said, "the
crisis of our revolution is at hand. Great disasters have
overtaken us. The army of Northern Virginia and our
With you
rest the hopes of our nation....You possess the means of
Commander-in-Chief are prisoners of war.
long resisting invasion. You have hopes of succor from
abroad. Protract the struggle, and you will surely receive
the aid of nations who already deeply sympathize with
you. The great resources of the Department, its vast ex-
tent, the numbers, discipline, and the efficiency of the
army, will secure to our country terms that a proud peo-
ple can with honor accept, and may, under the providence
emy, and securing the final success of our cause."
of God, be the means of checking the triumph of our en-

Five days later, when the tidings of the assassination of Lincoln had arrived, a mass meeting assembled at Shreveport. Among those present were Kirby Smith, Price, and Buckner, with a brace of nominal Governors, Allen of Louisiana, and Reynolds of Missouri. Colonel Flournoy delivered an oration eulogizing Booth, and comparing him with Brutus, the slayer of Cæsar. Just two days This report was dated on the 9th of May. Sher- before, April 24, a great war meeting was held at man could not then know how near the time was Houston, Texas, whereat General J. Bankhead Mawhen no army of the Confederacy should exist. Five gruder made a speech. To this Magruder the Condays before, though the tidings had not yet arrived, federacy owed much. His obstinate defense of the General Richard Taylor-commonly known as Dick lines at Yorktown, four years before, had saved the Taylor-surrendered to General Canby all "the Confederacy. At the Houston meeting Magruder forces, munitions of war, etc., in the Department declared that he was not at all discouraged at the of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana." The present position of affairs; he would at all events negotiations for this surrender took place at Citron- "rather be a Camanche Indian chief than bow the elle, Alabama, on the 4th of May. The terms were knee to Yankeedom." A week thereafter the citizens of Washington County, Texas, submitted to essentially the same as those accorded to Johnston: officers and men to be paroled until duly exchanged Magruder a proposition that every white male over or otherwise released by the United States; officers the age of thirteen years should be called into the to give their individual paroles; commanders of army; that every male slave should be brought in regiments and companies to sign paroles for their with his master; and that every white female should men; arms and munitions to be given up to the be provided with arms. Magruder thought the plan, United States; officers and men to be allowed to with sundry amendments, worthy of his cordial supreturn to their homes, and not to be molested so port. Plans and resolutions of this sort were rife in long as they kept their paroles, and obeyed the laws Texas late in April and early in May. At a meetwhere they re-ide, but persons resident in Northern ing in Richmond County, on the 8th of May, it was States not to return without permission; officers to unanimously resolved that "to the 80,000 veteran be allowed to retain their side-arms, private horses, soldiers now in the Trans-Mississippi Department we and baggage; horses, the private property of en- ought to add at once 30,000 new recruits, and at least listed men, not to be taken from them, but they to 30,000 negro auxiliaries; and that with this force, be allowed to retain them for private purposes only: well-fed and well-clothed, and under the protection as was to be expected, every horse worth any thing of God and the leadership of Smith and Magruder, was shown to be private property. This surrender we can not be conquered in Texas." Smith's headvirtually involved that of the Confederate vessels quarters were in the Red River region. His force, blockaded in the Tombigbee River. These, num- evidently much less than had been supposed, was bering twelve, were formally given up at the same wasting away by desertion, and received few accestime to Admiral Thacher, of the Western Gulf sions from across the Mississippi. On the 23d of May he sent officers to General Canby, at Baton Squadron. Rouge, to negotiate terms of surrender; these were agreed upon on the 26th-General Buckner, whose surrender of Fort Donelson, in February, 1862, was the first of the great series of Unions victories, being one of the commissioners for Smith. The terms were the same as those accorded to Taylor.-The last action in the war appears to have been a skirmish, on the 13th of May, near Brazos, in Western Colonel Barret had two days before set out Texas. from Brazos to seize a rebel camp a few miles distant, and to secure horses and cattle. The camp was seized, but before a return could be effected

Thus before the close of the first week in May
the entire Confederate force east of the Mississippi
But beyond the
had been formally surrendered.
great river, in Western Louisiana and Texas, was
a large rebel force under General E. Kirby Smith.
The war had hardly reached this vast region, and
the general result there had been unfavorable to the
Union cause.
The country was ill adapted for the
Smith was report-
advance of an invading army.
ed to have from 20,000 to 50,000 or even 80,000
men. To these, it was thought, might be added all
the Southern population who should refuse to ac-

MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS.

dence against Davis and the agents resident in Can-
ada was brought forward. The principal witness
was Sanford Conover, who represented himself as
a native of New York, but resident in South Caro-
He was con-
lina when the rebellion broke out.
scripted into the army, but detailed as a clerk in
the War Office, and afterward sent to Canada on
special service, where he was in the confidence of
Thompson and the other Confederate agents. He
was also a correspondent of the New York Tribune,
and claims to have furnished information which
led to the frustration of several plots. He was also
engaged as bearer of dispatches between the agents
in Canada and the authorities at Richmond, but
previously to delivering them placed them in the
His
hands of the Government at Washington.
testimony, if it is to be believed, clearly shows that
all the parties named were engaged not only in the
plot for murder, but in plots to burn the cities of
the North, destroy the Croton Water-works at New
York, introduce yellow-fever into the country by
means of infected clothing brought from Nassau,
and so on. He was confirmed by James B. Merrit,
a physician in Canada. Both swore positively that
the assassination was a matter of common conver-
sation, and that they knew Booth and Payne to be
on intimate terms with the rebel agents. Much
incidental testimony bearing upon the subject was
introduced during the whole course of the trial.
We have already noted that nearly all of the agents
in Canada expressly deny any connection with or
knowledge of the plot, and that Clay has surren-
dered himself for personal trial.

After the first three days the trial was held in public. The persons actually on trial, with the specific charges against them, are these: Louis Payne, the attempt to murder Mr. Seward and others; David C. Harold, assisting Booth in the assassination of the President, and aiding his escape; Edward Spangler, an attaché of Ford's Theatre, aiding Booth in the act, and assisting him to escape from the theatre; J. W. Atzerott, design to murder Vice-President Johnson; Michael O'Loughlin, design to murder General Grant; Samuel Arnold, Samuel Mudd, and Mary Surratt, aid and assistance to some or all the others in carrying out their designs, and in concealing them after its commission. Against Payne, whose true name is said to be Powell, formerly of Florida, the evidence is clear. He is positively identified as the person who made the attack upon Mr. Seward. His counsel merely put in a plea of "moral insanity." The case against Harold is equally clear. He waited for Booth outside the theatre, accompanied him in his flight, and was taken with him. The defense in his case is that he was a foolish youth of twentythree, vain of being admitted to the intimacy of Booth, ready to follow him every where, but too silly and trifling to have been intrusted with the secret of the plot. Spangler was shown to have been a sort of general servant to Booth, taking care of his horse, and doing errands for him. The evidence is strong that he directly aided Booth to make his escape from the theatre after the murder. With respect to the others the evidence thus far is less definite. The main points against Mudd are that he was personally acquainted with Booth before the murder, and that he set his leg, knowing who he was, and then aided him to escape. Against Mrs. Surratt, the chief points are that Booth, Payne, and Atzerott were more or less intimate at her house, and that when Payne came there after the attempt

upon Mr. Seward, she denied knowing him. It also
appears that her son John H. Surratt, who has not
been arrested, was deeply implicated in the plot.
But of this we can not pronounce
The proof against Arnold and Atzerott appears to
be less definite.

The policy of the Administration toward individ-
positively until the close of the trial.
uals in the lately insurgent States is clearly indi-
It refers to Lincoln's amnesty
cated by the President's proclamation of amnesty,
of the 29th of May.
proclamations of December 8, 1863, and March 26,
1864; states that many persons who had been en-
gaged in the rebellion had failed to take the benefits
then offered; that many who had thereby been just-
ly deprived of all claims to amnesty were now de-
sirous of obtaining amnesty and pardon. It then
proceeds to declare that:

To the end, therefore, that the authority of the Govern-
ment of the United States may be restored, and that peace,
son, President of the United States, do proclaim and de-
order, and freedom may be re-established, I, Andrew John-
clare that I hereby grant to all persons who have directly
as hereinafter excepted, amnesty and pardon, with restora-
or indirectly participated in the existing rebellion, except
tion of all rights of property, except as to slaves, and ex-
cept in cases where legal proceedings under the laws of the
United States providing for the confiscation of property of
the condition, nevertheless, that every such person shall
persons engaged in rebellion have been instituted; but on
take and subscribe the following oath or affirmation, and
thenceforward keep and maintain said oath inviolate, and
which oath shall be registered for permanent preservation,
do solemnly swear, or affirm, in presence
"I,
and shall be of the tenor and effect following, to wit:
of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support
Union of the States thereunder, and that I will, in like
and defend the Constitution of the United States and the
proclamations which have been made during the existing
manner, abide by and faithfully support all laws and
rebellion with reference to the emancipation of slaves, so
help me God."

The following classes of persons are excepted from the

benefits of this proclamation:

1. All who are or shall have been pretended civil or dip-
lomatic officers, or otherwise domestic or foreign agents,
2. All who left judicial stations under the United States
of the pretended Confederate Government.
to aid the rebellion.

3. All who shall have been military or naval officers of
said pretended Confederate Government above the rank of
4. All who left seats in the Congress of the United States
colonel in the army or lieutenant in the navy.
to aid the rebellion.

5. All who resigned or tendered resignations of their commissions in the army or navy of the United States to evade duty in resisting the rebellion.

6. All who have engaged in any way in treating otherwise than lawfully as prisoners of war persons found in the other capacities. United States service as officers, soldiers, seamen, or in

7. All persons who have been or are absentees from the 8. All military and naval officers in the rebel service United States for the purpose of aiding the rebellion. who were educated by the Government in the Military Academy at West Point or the United States Naval Academy.

9. All persons who held the pretended offices of Gov10. All persons who left their homes within the jurisernors of States in insurrection against the United States. diction and protection of the United States, and passed beyond the Federal military lines into the so-called Con11. All persons who have been engaged in the destrucfederate States, for the purpose of aiding the rebellion. tion of the commerce of the United States upon the high sens, and all persons who have made raids into the United commerce of the United States upon the lakes and rivers States from Canada, or been engaged in destroying the that separate the British Provinces from the United States.

12. All persons who, at the time when they seek to obtain the benefits hereof by taking the oath herein precustody, or under bonds of the civil, military, or naval auscribed, are in military, naval, or civil confinement or thorities or agents of the United States as prisoners of war, or persons detained for offenses of any kind either before or after conviction.

13. All persons who have voluntarily participated in said rebellion, and the estimated value of whose taxable property is over twenty thousand dollars.

14. All persons who have taken the oath of amnesty as the United States Navy, known as commander of prescribed in the President's proclamation of December 8, the La Plata Expedition, and as the author of a A.D. 1863, or an oath of allegiance to the Government of the United States since the date of said proclamation, and valuable work describing that expedition. She was who have not thenceforward kept and maintained the same fully iron-clad, bore two 70-pound and one 300inviolate. Provided, that special application may be made to the pound gun, and, moreover, was provided with a forPresident for pardon by any person belonging to the ex-midable ram. She was reported to have great speed. cepted classes, and such clemency will be liberally extended as may be consistent with the facts of the case and the peace and dignity of the United States.