e 1 through a considerable period, filled with tantalizing delays and annoying though not disastrous disappointments, has been relieved at last by splendid successes obtained by General Banks, and still more brilliant victories won by General Grant, all of which seem to promise most important results. I need not indicate the favorable influence which this change of our military situation will exercise in Europe to you, who know by experience even more trying than my own that the opinions and sympathies of states, not less than those of individuals, concerning any cause, are chiefly determined by the success obtained by those to whom the responsibilities of its defence are confided. June 8, 1863. You will have already learned of the active operations which have been instituted by General Grant and General Banks upon the Mississippi. We are awaiting the results with much anxiety. The tone of the public mind is generally pure, and the confidence of the country in our financial system is perhaps the best possible evidence of the confidence of the people in the ultimate success of the government. June 16, 1863. The military situation in the southwest remains unchanged. The sieges of Vicksburg and Port Hudson are continued. There has been a change on the line in Virginia. Lee has moved westward from Fredericksburg, and General Hooker's army has, of course, changed position and attitude. But the object of Lee's strategy is not yet developed. - June 22, 1863. Reports from Vicksburg and Port Hudson state that the sieges of those places still continue. We learn to-day, through the insurgent press, that the Fingal, which, during her long imprisonment at Savannah, had been converted into an iron-clad ship-of-war, was last week captured by two of our iron-clad ships, on her attempting to leave the port and enter upon her work of piracy. I informed you by the last mail that Lee's insurgent army had been put in motion, and that General Hooker had consequently taken a new position with the army of the Potomac. These changes have been attended by much activity of the cavalry of both armies, thus far unfruitful of important results. While due efforts have been made to prepare against surprise upon our part, the enemy's plan of attack has not yet been satisfactorily ascertained. June 29, 1863. You may not be able to discover the true condi tion of military affairs through the confusion produced by the crosslights of the press. Our official information represents the sieges of Port Hudson and Vicksburg as going on successfully. Two of the three corps of the insurgent army, lately encamped on the Rappahannock, have forded the upper Potomac, and are in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The position of the third corps is not certainly known. General Hooker has, at his own request, been relieved, and is replaced by General Meade, an officer who enjoys the confidence of the army and of the War Department. He is moving vigorously, and, judging from present appearances, a meeting of the two armies is likely to occur in Pennsylvania, or on the border of Maryland. You will have heard much of cavalry raids, and other subordinate movements of the two armies, but they have thus far been unfruitful of any important results. July 6, 1863. The two opposing armies in "Pennsylvania are understood to be about equal in numbers. Seven corps constitute the army of the Potomac, while the insurgent forces are divided in three corps. On Wednesday, the third instant, the two advanced United States corps unexpectedly encountered two of the insurgent corps northwest of Gettysburg, and a severe conflict ensued, which resulted in a withdrawal of our forces to a favorable position in rear of the town, where they threw up defences, and were joined by the other portions of the army during the night and morning. On Thursday, the whole insurgent army, being in line, offered battle, which was accepted. It continued throughout Thursday and Friday. It was unquestionably the most sanguinary conflict of the war, and resulted in the withdrawal of the insurgents from the field on the morning of Saturday, the 4th, and the retreat towards the Potomac began on that night, and was continued at the date of the last advices. Our cavalry is harassing the retiring enemy in the rear, while General Meade is operating, with the aid of reinforcements, upon the enemy's flank. From Vicksburg we have encouraging despatches of the date of Monday, the 29th of June. I cannot inform you of the movements of General Rosecrans in any other way so well as by giving you his last despatch, which is as follows: "Our movement commenced on the twenty-fourth (24th) June. Have driven Bragg from his intrenched positions at Shelbyville and Tullahoma. Either of them is stronger than Corinth. Have pressed him through the mountains. Incessant rains and the impassable state of the roads alone prevented us from forcing him to a general battle. Sheridan's division occupied Cowen yesterday at three (3) P. M. The enemy has retreated towards Bridgeport and Chattanooga. Every effort is being made to bring forward supplies and threaten the enemy sufficiently to hold him. As I have already advised you, Tullahoma was evacuated Tuesday night. Our troops pursued him and overtook his train at Elk River. He burned the bridge. In that operation our loss in killed and wounded will not exceed five hundred. The loss of the enemy may be safely put at one thousand killed and wounded, one thousand prisoners, seven pieces of artillery, and five or six hundred tents. The country is filled with deserters from the Tennessee troops, and it is generally thought a very large portion of these troops will never leave their native state. Nothing but most stringent coercion can detain them. It is impossible to convey to you an idea of the continuous rains we have had since the commencement of these operations, or the state of the roads." July 9, 1863.-The steamers of the 4th and 8th have carried to Europe intelligence of the defeat of General Lee in three pitched battles, equalling in the magnitude of forces, and surpassing in severity, the conflicts of Waterloo and Solferino. The defeated army, however, was not destroyed nor captured. A decisive battle is now gathering at Antietam, and information of its result will probably go out with this despatch. The fall of Vicksburg1 on the 4th of July, undoubtedly to be followed soon by the fall of Port Hudson, must completely revolutionize the contest on the Mississippi. Our land and naval forces, relieved from the labor of protracted sieges, become a movable power, adequate to the practical restoration of commerce, or, in other words, the Union, through the centre of our territory, from our northern boundary to the Gulf of Mexico. Indications already appear, that the work of internal dissolution is begun in the insurgent confederacy. Practically, it has lost all the states west of the Mississippi, and is confined to the Atlantic states, south of Cape Henry, and the Gulf states. Its capacity to raise new levies and new armies, if not exhausted, is greatly diminished. 1 See speech on fall of Vicksburg, page 485. July 11, 1863.-I have the pleasure of stating that our naval force is steadily and rapidly increasing. The navy has already in actual service forty-four thousand men. New, better, and more effective steamships, iron-clads, as well as others, are coming from the docks; and we do not distrust our ability to defend ourselves in our harbors and on the high seas, even if we must unhappily be precipitated, through injustice in Europe, into a foreign war. The fall of Vicksburg releases a large naval force for effective service, while the free navigation of the Mississippi, now immediately expected, will restore to us our accustomed facilities for foreign conflict. The same great event relieves the army of General Grant, which numbers one hundred thousand men, from the labors and fatigues of a siege, and gives us movable columns for uncompleted purposes of the war. The capture of Vicksburg, the occupation of Tullahoma, and the defeat of the insurgents in Pennsylvania, are the achievements of the campaign which was proposed in the last autumn. The army which has performed them is still strong and effective. It will now be reinforced, easily and cheerfully, by the people, with an addition of three hundred thousand men. On the other hand, the insurgents have within the last month sustained an aggregate loss of fifty thousand men, which, I think, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to replace, and, without their being replaced, their military strength can hardly be deemed permanently formidable. July 13, 1863.- Europe waited patiently for the end of a siege of eleven months at Sevastopol, and a year for a result of a like operation in Mexico. Forty-five days' delay at Vicksburg, and a similar delay at Port Hudson, have proved too severe an exaction upon the magnanimity of parties in Europe who desire the ruin of the United States. At the moment when I write, the scene in this country has altogether changed. Vicksburg, with all its defenders and material, has fallen, at last, into our possession. Rosecrans has driven the insurgents of Tennessee within the interior lines. The army of the Potomac has retrieved its fortunes and prestige, and the forces of General Lee are understood to be hemmed in between a flood in their front and a victorious army in their rear. Charleston is again under siege of iron-clads. Our army is being renewed by a levy of three hundred thousand men, which will swell the aggregate to eight hundred thousand, while the insurgent resources are manifestly very much diminished. Under these circumstances, the public mind, im patient of rest, is already agitating the conditions on which peace shall be conceded. While, however, this is the exact condition of affairs in America, we have warnings, apparently authentic, of a purpose on the part of the Emperor of the French to employ all his influence to procure a recognition of the insurgents by other powers; and failing in this, to proceed alone in that injurious policy. We hear, also, of a debate upon recognition in the British Parliament, but the steamer which bore the news of the debate did not wait for the decision. Upon this statement of our case, as it is developed here, you will be able to determine for yourself the probabilities of a new foreign complication, and the spirit in which it will be met, if it must come to embarrass us. July 14, 1863. We have advices from Port Hudson of the 3d of July. The siege was then vigorously maintained, and there is reason to believe that reinforcements, if thought necessary, have since been supplied by General Grant. The 8th of July gave us our last intelligence from Vicksburg, and it enables me to correct some of the details of the results of the capitulation contained in my recent telegram. More than twenty-seven thousand (27,000) prisoners had already then been paroled, and the task was not yet completed. There were found in various parts of the city, concealed and otherwise, sixty-six thousand (66,000) stand of small arms, and still new searches discovered new deposits of the same sort. The whole amount of ordnance captured, including siege and sea-coast guns, exceeded two hundred (200). The supply of ammunition surpasses belief. It would have sufficed for six years of defence, if used at the rate that it was consumed during the siege. The military stores, chiefly clothing for soldiers, are estimated at five millions of dollars, insurrectionary currency. General Sherman was in hot pursuit of Johnston's forces. The insurgent army, under Bragg, has been driven out of Tennessee into Alabama. Rear-Admiral Dahlgren was expected to assault Morris Island, which is one of the defences of Charleston, on the 9th. Lee's insurgent army has retreated before General Meade, and is now understood to be compactly posted near the fords of the Potomac, and wholly lies between the banks of that river and the Union army. Lee's losses in the late battles are believed to have been thirty-three thousand (33,000) men. A solution of the problem of |