1. We were first shown the battle-flag of the rebels, which Gen. McClellan informed us had been generally adopted by them, in lieu of the regular confederate or national rebel flag, which was the only one carried in the earlier periods of the war. This flag was about four feet square, red ground, with blue stripes, about four inches wide, running diagonally across, or from corner to corner. On these stripes are twelve white stars, representing the twelve States claimed by the rebels as belonging to their confederacy. It was very badly torn and blood-stained. From a written paper sewed on it, I learned that it had been the battle-flag of the Eleventh Alabama regiment, captured by the Fifty-seventh New-York volunteers, Richardson's division, Sumner's corps, at the battle of "Antietam," September seventeenth, 1862. 2. A regular confederate flag, with the stars and bars. I could not learn the history of this flag, from what regiment captured, nor by whom? 3. Another battle-flag, similar in all respects to No. 1. It was very much torn and very bloody. The following history of its capture was pinned to it: "HEADQUARTERS DOUBLEDAY'S DIVISION, "This flag was captured by private Isaac Thomas, company G, Twentieth regiment N.Y.S.M., September seventeenth, 1862, at the battle of Antietam.' Thomas shot the rebel color-bearer, then ran forward and brought off the colors. THEO. R. GATES, Lieutenant-Colonel Commanding." 4. Another battle-flag, similar to the last. On the upper edge of this flag "Williamsburgh" is painted in large letters, and "Seven Pines" on the lower edge. It was captured at the battle of "Antietam," September seventeenth, 1862, by the Seventh New-York volunteers, Caldwell's brigade, Richardson's division. 5. Another battle-flag captured at "Antietam," similar to No. 4, with the words "Seven Pines," in large letters on the lower edge. 6. A large and very splendid silk flag, with the staff shot in two in the middle. This flag is composed of silk of three colors, and when new must have been a very superb one. The field is of deep blue, with a single large straw-colored star in the centre. The bars are of straw color and delicate purple. On the field at the top is inscribed "Seven Pines," on the yellow bar, "Gaines' Farm" and "Eltham's Landing," and "Malvern Hills" on the purple bar. It is much torn and stained, and is bordered with heavy but tarnished silver fringe. This is evidently a Texan standard. I regret that I could not learn its history. star. 7. Flag of North-Carolina. Red field with single Above the star is the inscription, “May 20th, 1775," referring to the Mecklenburgh Declaration of Independence; below the star, "May 20th, 1861," referring to the rebel declaration of independence. In other respects it is similar to the regular battle-flag of the confederate States. 8. Battle-flag abandoned by the rebels on the battlefield of "Shepherdstown Bluffs," September 19, 1862, when a portion of Griffin's brigade, of Morell's division, Gen. Fitz-John Porter's Fifth army corps, forded the Potomac and carried the heights by assault. This is a silk flag of large size. Its color originally was pink, but now faded by exposure to the weather. It had the diagonal bars of blue, with the white stars, and is bordered with rich yellow fringe. It must have been very handsome when new. 9. A regular confederate flag, the history of which I did not learn. 10. Regular battle-flag, captured by the Fourth regiment Vermont volunteers, at the battle of "Crampton's Pass," (South-Mountain,) Maryland, on Sunday, September fourteenth, 1862. 11. A flag of different style from any of the preceding ones, composed of two triangular pieces of red and white bunting, without star, bar, or inscription. 12, 13, 14. Three battle-flags, without history. 15. Another battle-flag, differing from those already described, it being bordered with orange-colored fringe. The others were without borders. This flag was cap tured at the battle of Antietam, September seventeenth, 1862, by the Sixty-first New-York volunteers, Caldwell's brigade, Richardson's division. 16. A battle-flag, captured at Antietam, September seventeenth, 1862, by the Seventeenth regiment NewYork volunteers, Caldwell's brigade, Richardson's division. 17. A magnificent, large, dark-blue silk flag, with handsome centre painted, representing two females, one holding a pod of unripe cotton, and the other a staff and liberty cap in her left hand, and a scroll, on which is inscribed "The Constitution of North-Carolina," in her right hand. Below, "4th Regiment NorthCarolina Volunteers." This flag was captured by the Fifth New-Hampshire volunteers, Colonel E. E. Cross, of Caldwell's brigade, Richardson's division, at tietam," September seventeenth, 1862. ral George Nettleson, seized the colors and brought them off, although badly wounded. The same regi ment shot down the color-bearers of battle-flags of other regiments opposed to them. An Color-Corpo 18. Another battle-flag, made of two triangular pieces of coarse bunting, with staff surmounted by a pike-head of iron, similar to the head of a John Brown spear or pike. 19. A dirty-looking rebel flag, captured at "Crampton's Pass" (South-Mountain,) September the fourteenth, 1862, from the Sixteenth regiment Virginia, by the Fourth regiment New-Jersey volunteers, Torbert's brigade, Slocum's division, Franklin's corps d'armée. W. B. Hatch, Col. Fourth United States volunteers. 20. A dingy-looking flag of very coarse bunting, captured by the same regiment, at Crampton's Pass, September fourteenth, 1862, by the Fourth New-Jer sey volunteers, from the "Cobb Legion of Georgia." JEFF DAVIS'S EARLY HISTORY.-For the benefit of those who admire and hurrah for Jeff Davis, we publish the following bit of family history taken from the Nashville Union: "A trifling little rebel paper in Kentucky professes to doubt the truth of our statement respecting the origin of Jeff Davis. What we stated is well known to hundreds of our best citizens of Christian and Todd Counties of Kentucky. Jeff Davis's father lived for a number of years in a log cabin situated in what is now the town of Fairview, twelve miles from Hopkinsville, Kentucky. The house is now weather-boarded, and used as a tavern. Old Davis was a man of bad character, a horse-trader, a swindler, and of very low habits. A fine horse was missing on one occasion in the neighborhood, under such suspicious circumstances that he found it safest to leave the country immediate ly and fly to Mississippi. Jeff Davis is his illegitimate son, born some miles distant from his father's house, and taken home by him when several years of age. These are notorious facts. Some of Davis's relatives still live in that part of Kentucky. We would not have alluded to this sinister bar on Jeff's escutcheon, were not his friends continually prating about Southern gentility and the low breeding of the Union people. Our own opinion is, that Jeff's birth does him more credit than any portion of his subsequent life." -The New South. A UNION Soldier died at St. Louis of wounds received at Fort Donelson. He was from Iowa, and his funeral was held in the capital of that State. His dying injunction was, that no enemy of his country, secessionist or abolitionist, should be permitted to touch his body.-Chicago Times. The repugnance of that soldier to abolitionism-his detestation of it-is not singular, but is shared in by three fourths of the army. The feeling is increasing in intensity every day.—Ohio Statesman, May 7. A REBEL'S PARTING WORDS TO THE YANKEES.-The following document, found in one of the dwellings at Yorktown, Va., speaks for itself: To the Future Yankee Occupants of this Place: We have retired to the country for a short time to recruit our health. We find that with your two hundred thousand men you are too modest to visit this place, and we give you an opportunity to satisfy your curiosity with regard to our defences, assuring you that we will call upon you soon. We hope a few days' residence in a house once occupied by men will induce enough courage in your gallant hearts to enable you to come within at least two miles of white men hereafter. Be sure to have on hand a supply of "pork'n beans when we return; also some codfish and "apple sass." When we learn to relish such diet we may become like you-Puritanical, selfish, thieving, God-forgotten, devil-worshipping, devil-belonging, African-loving, blue-bellied Yankees. Advise father Abraham to keep his Scotch cloak on hand, to keep soberer, and your wise Congress to hunt up two thousand five hundred millions of specie to pay the debt you have incurred in winning the contempt of every live man. We have on hand a few tools which we devote to the special duty of loosening the links of your steel shirts. Couldn't you get a few iron-clad men to do your fighting? Are you not horribly afraid that we will shoot you below the shirts? When are you coming to Richmond? Couldn't you go up the river with us? There is one score which we will yet settle with you, to the death. Your fiendlike treatment of old men and helpless women reads you out of the pale of civilized warfare, and if rifles are true and knives keen, we will rid some of you of your beastly inclinations. When you arise as high in the scale of created beings as a Brazilian monkey, we will allow you sometimes to associate with our negroes; but until then Southern soil will be too hot for the sons of the Pilgrims. The only dealing we will have with you is, henceforth, war to the knife. We despise you as heartily as we can whip you easily on any equal field. Most heartily at your service, whenever you offer a fight. J. TRAVISO SCOTT, Company A, Sixth Georgia Volunteers. -Missouri Democrat, May 10. A MARCHING RECORD.-A few days since General Halleck ordered General Curtis to detach a portion of the army of the South-west, and send it with all possible despatch to the aid of the Federal forces before Corinth. The order was received by the latter at Bates ville, Ark., and promptly obeyed. How many men were forwarded it is unnecessary to mention, but the alacrity of their movements is worthy of note. The march from Batesville to Cape Girardeau, Mo., a distance of two hundred and forty miles, was accomplished in ten days, some of the men being obliged to travel barefoot for the last sixty miles. This gives an average of twenty-tour miles per day; and when it is remembered that the regulation day's march is fifteen miles, we can readily accord the honor for rapid locomotion to the soldiers of the South-west. The day before the battle of Pea Ridge, a detachment from Curtis's army, under Colonel Vandever, marched from Huntsville to Sugar Creek, forty-one miles, with but two halts of fifteen minutes each. Few of the soldiers in the armies under McClellan and Halleck have undergone hardships equal to those incident to a campaign in Missouri and Arkansas. It is a significant fact that there have been proportionately fewer deaths by disease in the armies of the South-west than in those which, month after month, lay dormant along the Potomac and the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.-Chicago Tribune. "SKEDADDLE."-This word has been supposed to who was at loss for an appropriate term to express his have originated in the fertile brain of some Yankee, idea of the mania of the rebels for retreating before the advance of our armies. The Louisville Journal, however, shows that the word is of Grecian birth, as will be seen by the following extract from an article in that paper: The primitive of skedaddle is a pure Greek word of great antiquity. It occurs in Homer, Hesiod, Eschylus, Sophocles, Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, and it was used to express in Greek the very idea that we undertake, in using it, to express in Eng lish. Homer, in the Iliad,' uses only the aorist eskedasa or skedasa. Thus in 'Iliad' 19: 171, we have skedason laon, for scattering, dispersing. "In Prometheus, Eschylus thus uses it (skeda) in making the sun disperse the hoar frost of the morn.' And again Prometheus uses this word in predicting woes upon Jupiter, when he says that a flame more potent than the lightning' shall be invented, which shall (skeda) shiver the ocean-trident, the spear of Neptune.' "In the Odyssey, we find Homer using skedasis in describing the scattering of the suitors of Penelope when Ulysses should come, and in the twentieth book of the Odyssey we have the same word used for the dispersing of the suitors to their houses,' as the result of the return of Ulysses. "In Thucydides, book iv., 56, we have an account of a garrison at Cotyria and Aphrodisia, which terrified by an attack a (eskedasmenon) scattered crowd.' At the capture of Torene, in Chalcidice, Thucydides describes the result of the rush of Brasidas and his troops toward the highest parts of the town, and among these results 'the rest of the multitude (eskedannunto) scattered or dispersed in all directions alike.' In this sense skedasis is used by Xenophon in the Anabasis, by Plato in the Timæus, by Apollonius of Rhodes, by Hesiod, and by Sophocles. It is, therefore, a classic word, and is full of expression." THE following advertisement appears in the Memphis Appeal, of the thirty-first of May. The "despicable monster " referred to is General Butler: ATTENTION, MEN!—A DARING ENTERPRISE.-Twenty Articles of Sundary.-4 large c, not mounted; 2 five able-bodied men are wanted to engage in an en-mortars. We arrive at Port Royal, Hilton, on same terprise, having for its object the capture or killing night about 9 P.M.-New-York Tribune. of the most despicable monster that now treads Southern soil. Each individual must be a calm, cool, intelligent, desperate man, who enlists in the enterprise with a certainty of death before him in case of failure, and is willing to yield his life cheerfully to accomplish the end in view. The scene of their labors will be hundreds of miles away, and in a community where a hint of the contemplated movement would result in an immediate self-sacrifice. Every man will provide himself with a revolver and a small bowie knife. His reward will be the gratitude of his country. Applicants will address, with references as to their courage and character, "A. O.," Memphis Post-office, and be prepared to respond to a further call. CONFEDERATE IMPRESSMENTS. Mr. T. E. Chambliss, of a south-side county, "be lieving that much injury has been done our cause by injudicious impressments," addressed a letter to Gen. Lee on the subject, and received the following reply: HEADQUARTERS, RICHMOND, May 22, T. E. Chambliss, Esq., Petersburgh: SIR: Your letter of the twentieth inst., is received. I am opposed to the whole system of impressment, and endeavor to put a stop to it as far as I am able, and prefer relying on the patriotism and zeal of our citizens. Officers of the army say that it is sometimes REBEL PARTISAN CORPS.-The following advertise- absolutely necessary to resort to it, in cases of great ment appeared in the Mississippian: PARTISAN RANGERS. I have to-day received authority from the Secretary of War, at Richmond, to raise a corps of Partisan Rangers, to serve in the southern part of this State, for the war, where they are most urgently needed at this time, to check and intercept the marauding parties of our vandal enemies, who are every day committing robbery and murder upon Mississippi soil. They must be driven back. emergency. I shall forward your letter to General Huger, commanding the department embracing the counties enumerated in your letter, and request him in cases of necessity, and also to take precautions to prevent impressment from being resorted to, except operations of the people. I hope you will do all in against any undue interference with the agricultural by the farmers, the importance of which cannot be your power to encourage the production of subsistence over-estimated. I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, Bold, true, and earnest men, of any age, will be re--Richmond Enquirer, June 10. ceived in this corps; but no others are wanted, or will be retained. LOG OF THE PLANTER.-The following is a copy of the log of the steamer Planter, kept by Robert Small when he escaped from Charleston harbor to the blockading fleet: List.-Robert Small, Pilot; Alfred Gridiron, Engineer; Abram Jackson, Jebel Turner, W. C. Thompson, Sam Chishlm, Abram Allerton, Hannah Small, Susan Small, Clara Jones, Anna White, Levina Wilson, David McCloud, 3 small children. Log. We leave Charleston at past 3 o'clock on Tuesday morning. We pass Fort Sumter past 4 o'clock. We arrived at blockading squadron at Charleston bar at 6. We give three cheers for the Union flag wonce more. to THE OLD SERGEANT. The carrier cannot sing to-day the ballads General Rhyming the grand-rounds of the happy New-Years For the same awful and portentous shadow And smote the land last year with desolation, And the carrier hears Beethoven's mighty death-march And he hears and feels it breathing in his bosom, And to-day, like a scarred and weather-beaten veteran, To tell the story of the Old Year's struggles, And the song is his, but not so with the story; By Robert Burton, who was brought up on the Adams And who told the story to the Assistant-Surgeon But the singer feels it will better suit the ballad, To sing the story as if what it speaks of "Come a little nearer, Doctor-Thank you! let me take the cup! Draw your chair up-draw it closer-just another little sup! Waiting to be ferried over to the dark bluffs opposite, When the river seemed perdition and all hell seemed opposite ! May be you may think I'm better, but I'm pretty well" used up And the same old palpitation came again with all its power, Doctor, you've done all you could do, but I'm just a And I heard a bugle sounding as from heaven or a going up. "Feel my pulse, sir, if you want to, but it is no use to try." "Never say that," said the surgeon, as he smothered down a sigh, "It will never do, old comrade, for a soldier to say die !" "What you say will make no difference, Doctor, when you come to die. "Doctor, what has been the matter?" very faint they say; You must try to get to sleep now." been away?" "You were "Doctor, have I "No, my venerable comrade." Doctor, will you please to stay? There is something I must tell you, and you won't have long to stay! "I have got my marching orders, and am ready now to go; Doctor, did you say I fainted?- but it couldn't have tower; And the same mysterious voice said: 'IT IS -THE ELEVENTH HOUR! ORDERLY-SERGEANT-ROBERT BURTON-IT IS THE ELEYENTH HOUR!' There were still the two log-houses, just the same, or else their ghost And the same old transport came and took me overor its ghost! «And the whole field lay before me, all deserted far and wide There was where they fell on Prentiss-there McCler nand met the tide ; There was where stern Sherman rallied, and where Hurlbut's heroes died Lower down, where Wallace charged them, and kept charging till he died! แ "There was where Lew Wallace showed them he was of the cannie kin There was where old Nelson thundered and where Rousseau waded in There McCook'sent them to breakfast,' and we all began to win There was where the grape-shot took me just as we began to win. "Now a shroud of snow and silence over every thing was spread; And but for this old, blue mantle, and the old hat on my head, I should not have even doubted, to this moment, I was dead; For my footsteps were as silent as the snow upon the dead! "Death and silence! Death and silence! starry silence overheard! And To behold a mighty tower, as if builded to the dead, the heaven of the heavens lifted up its mighty head! Till the Stars and Stripes of heaven all seemed waving from its head! "Round and mighty-based, it towered-up into the infinite! And I knew no mortal mason could have built a shaft so bright; FOREVER AND FOREVER. BY GEORGE W. BUNGAY. For others' weal let good men labor, Aid him in every true endeavor And should thy feeble brother stumble, As stars shine, quenched by midnight never, So souls that God has lit within Will shine forever and forever. Break not the heart that's almost broken, That mortal man cannot dissever; And last forever and forever. Of cloudless sun and freedom's song. COME LIST, MY BOYS, ENLIST. Hurrah! the boys are moving-the fife and drum speak war; A Quaker's son is captain, and numbers up his score, And harvest past, right well we know, he'll drill his eighty more. For it must be done, the people say; The fields stand rough in stubble, the wheat is under roof; What are you made of, country boys? come, give your mother proof: Your comrades fight, and cowards you if you shall stand aloof. For it must be done, the people say, etc. Up, change the rake for rifle—the companies recruit; Come, out with arms all brawn, and learn the secret how to shoot; Your sisters, in the cider-time, will gather in the fruit. For it must be done, the people say, etc. Good tidings for the telegraph, swift let the message run; Old Chester sends her greeting proud along to Washington; Each farm-house pours it treasures free, and conse crates a son. For it must be done, the people say, etc. |