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An Honor to her Sex.

A lady appeared before a Federal Provost-Marshal in Tennessee, as an applicant for pecuniary assistance. She was evidently a lady 'to the manor born,' with a chirography that would have done credit to any one, and her language was entirely free from that peculiarity of dialect so characteristic of the region from which she hailed. The case stood as follows: Provost Marshal-You are an applicant for relief?

Lady-Yes, sir.

Provost-Where is your husband?
Lady-He is dead, sir.

Provost-When did he die?

Lady-In 1859.

much despised Federal Government. Of course the whole throng had first to apply to the Provost-Marshal, and when the proper hour had arrived they were ushered into his tent, one by one, to relate

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Provost-Have you a plantation? Lady-Yes, sir, four hundred acres. Provost-Where are your slaves? Lady-We had but four; one of them is a decrepit, old woman, and is now with me. The remainder were carried off by Bragg's army, to keep them from falling into the hands of the Union troops. Provost-Were they carried away by plies at regular intervals, without the inyour consent?

Lady-They were not.

their sufferings and the causes which had brought them to distress. They were all new applicants, the old ones getting sup

tervention of the Provost-Marshal. The first whose fortune it was to be called, on

Provost-Have you any objection to this occasion, was a Mrs. Ricard. The taking the oath of allegiance.

Lady-I have not; I have always consistently opposed secession. I did so in the presence of Bragg's army, even more loudly than I oppose it now.

This case shows that the chaff in that section was not unmixed with wheat.

Marshal asked her

"Are you a widow?"
"No, sir."

"Where is your husband?"

"With Bragg, in the Third Tennessee cavalry."

"Your husband is in the rebel army; when did he join it?"

"Two years since." "Did he volunteer?" "Yes, to keep from being conscripted." "But the rebel conscription law was not then in force."

Affecting Appeal to a Union Commissary. The distress produced in some portions of Kentucky and Tennessee by the secession heresy almost exceeded description. At Bridgeport might frequently have been seen a crowd of females around the United States Commissary, applicants for relief. They were in many instances wretched creatures. Of forty-seven females present on one occasion, only three possessed any money to make purchases; the remainder were all pensioners upon the bounty of the slaves."

"But they told him that it would soon be, and he had better volunteer."

"Was he not a strong secessionist from the start?"

"Yes; he thought you wanted to deprive us of our rights, and take all our

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"What property had he?"
"Nothing; he lived by days' work."

"Why, then, was he so fearful about the slaves?"

"Because he was afraid the North would put the niggers on an equality with us." "Your husband is in the rebel army, and you ask us to supply you with bread. Why do you do this?"

Mrs. Ricard threw aside the fly of the tent and just outsidé stood five small children, who had but a single article of clothing a light, home-spun cotton wrapperon each, though the wind was blowing chilly cold from the north. "They have not had a mouthful since yesterday morning," said Mrs. R., "and not half enough for six months." The appeal was irresistible the Provost-Marshal told her he would administer the oath and get her relief.

From a Palace to the Attic.

The papers were passed and the money paid that night. The next day the house was sold for forty thousand dollars. Two or three things in this transaction made His Honor a little unquiet. He offered his house ten thousand dollars less than his next door neighbor asked. He had to abandon his comfortable and luxurious home instanter. He was literally turned into the street. Somebody made ten thousand dollars out of him. Getting a fashionable residence at any reasonable price was out of the question. Nothing remained for him but the overcrowded Fifth Avenue Hotel, where, with his family, in an attic story, he was at last accounts waiting for something to turn up.

Cord for Cord-Secession Currency. Quite a 'good un' is told of a steamboat Captain who stopped with his boat at a wood yard, coming down the river, and who thought to try the pretended loyalty of the owner of the yard by an offer of Confederate money, of which the boat had a good supply.

66 Will you take Confederate money for your wood?" shouted the Captain, to the man on shore.

"Yes," was the laconic reply.

"What do you ask for wood now?" he asked.

"What kind of money did you say you would pay in?" inquired the wood vender. "Confederate."

As an example of the financial inflation caused by the war and a redundant currency, the following is not at all an exaggeration: An ex-mayor of New York, The boat hauled to, was made fast, who lived in an elegant residence and in and a stage thrown out, when it occurred sumptuous style, was visited one day by to the Captain to inquire about the rate he two ladies, who asked permission to look was to pay. at his house, stating that the house next door was for sale, but the occupants would not allow them to view it. His Honor courteously informed them that the houses in that block were exactly alike, and they might examine his house as fully as they pleased. On leaving, one of the ladies. said to him, "I suppose you would not sell Present of a Turkey to General Sedgwick. your house?" "Oh, yes," said His Honor, A woman came into the head-quarters "I'll sell anything but my wife and chil- of the Virginia army, from the country, dren." That afternoon he received a note and going to General Sedgwick, who was from a leading real estate house, asking sitting en dishabille on the steps of a him if he would sell his house, and at what house, inquired for the General, saying price. He offered it at thirty thousand she had brought him a turkey, because he dollars. The offer was taken at once. had sent a guard to her house to protect

"Well, then, I want cord for cord!"

integrity might be given in sufficient number to fill a volume. They will be found amply and admirably displayed in that excellently prepared work, "Grant and his Campaigns," which exceeds in thrilling interest any similar works in which Napoleon or Wellington are the central heroes.

Balance of Power maintained between
Turkeys and Chickens.

her property. "Won't you sell me the turkey?" said the General, "I will pay you well for it." "No," replied the woman, "I have brought it for the General, and no one else can have it." The discussion was kept up some time, till finally the General pointed out an officer in full uniform, saying, "There, go give it to him." She immediately went and delivered the turkey to the officer, who took it in amazement, while she gave utterance to some A company of the th cavalry of volvoluble thanks. Some of the bystanders, unteers (no matter what State,) were out who had heard the whole matter, subse- on a forage, with the usual orders to requently illumined the woman's conceptions, spect the enemy's property. But coming and she came up to the General, blushing upon a plantation where chickens and and apologizing-expressing her regrets turkeys were dallying in the sunshine, that she had given the turkey to the wrong person. The matter was rectified, very much to her satisfaction.

tired of pork and plaster pies, alias hard tack, gave the boys leave to club over as many of the "two-legged things in feathers," as they could conveniently come at.

Grant's Objection to having any Trade-Part- The result was that a good number were

nership.

dispatched, and, tied together by the legs, Quite a characteristic anecdote is told were slung over the pommel of the saddle of General Grant, relative to his refusal of "Benny," an old sabreur, who had fron to engage in or authorize any movements tiered it for years, been in more Indian for the reopening of trade with the rebel- fights than you could shake a stick at, and lious States. On one occasion, especially, could tell, if he wanted to, of some highafter his protests and orders suppressing old-hard times with those same Mdewasuch traffic, he was eagerly entreated by kantonwar, Wahpekute, Ihanktonwannas, the agents of the Treasury Department to and Minnikanyewazhipu, red-skinned authorize some system of trade. For a friends. Returning to camp, as ill luck long time he refused, for the reason that would have it, they met the Colonel of he could not successfully conduct his military operations while such persons were moving around him; but at last he conceded that a certain amount of trade in the recaptured districts of the South would be safe, proper, and even highly useful to the Union-provided it could be conducted why don't you sling those chickens the through honest, unimpeachable Union other side your saddle? The Colonel hands. He was asked to name the per- will see them hanging that way." sons to whom he would be willing to be done! got fourteen turkeys there on a intrust such traffic: balance!" By remarkably good fortune "I will do no such thing," was Grant's the Colonel did not see the chickens, so reply; "for if I did, it would appear in they and the turkeys were safely smugless than a week that I was a partner of gled into camp, Benny getting the full every one of the persons trading under credit for maintaining the balance of my authority." power,' when the odds were dead against

their regiment riding out to a neighboring camp. Just before they met him, in fact when they were nearly up to him, for a curve of the road had hid him from sight until then, the officer in command rode by Benny with the command: ".

Instances of the General's unbending him.

it now,

"Can't

Rare Trick upon a War Correspondent. cure for him the pass required. He was When the Union army occupied Fred-". very much obliged," and received the erick, in September, 1862, one or two of following note:

H'DQ'RS, LISBON, Maryland, Sept. 13.

Provost Marshal, Ellicott's Mills:

the most enterprising correspondents of the press were early on hand, and railroad communication with Baltimore being suspended they were obliged to send their despatches through to Baltimore on horseback. At that time a strong picket was thrown out from Baltimore to Ellicott's stances, I am strongly of the opinion that

The bearer represents himself as a reporter and messenger for the New York From certain suspicious circum

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Yours, etc.,

TIMOTHY JONES,

Mills, and Burnside's corps lay on the he is nothing but a Baltimore secessionist pike near Lisbon. Late one evening, spy. He wants a pass, and I have referred a reporter entered what he supposed to be him to you; but I think it would be well the Provost Marshal's office in Lisbon, and enough to detain him until he can satisaddressing a gentleman in semi-military factorily identify himself. costume sitting at a table, introduced himself, stated his business, and asked for a pass which would enable him to get through the pickets at Ellicott's Mills after the countersign was out. The reply was that he could not obtain a pass which would take him through the pickets, but he could have a note to the Provost Marshal at Ellicott's Mills which would probably pro- tained some twenty hours before he could

Captain and Provost Marshal. The correspondent went on his way rejoicing. Upon being challenged by the pickets at Ellicott's Mills, he presented his letter, whereupon to his astonishment he was forthwith taken into custody, and de

satisfy the officers that a cruel "sell" had to pass through the swampy grounds on been practiced upon him. Of course, the way to Richmond. One of the most "Timothy Jones" was nobody less than a noted chief commanders of the Union army lazy correspondent who had got behind in was singularly liberal in this respect, and his duties; and he at once improved his even the good General Steele left supplies chance, went up to Frederick, and got in for the rebels on a still larger scale. To his account as soon as his poor competitor facts of this kind is probably due the rewhom he had practiced this sorry joke ply attributed to General Ripley, on a reupon. quisition for supplies being made upon him, before he was displaced: "Gentlemen," he said, "I must decline furnishing both armies any more. Let me know which

Hooker and the Newspaper Correspondents. General Hooker always treated every newspaper correspondent who visited him army is to be supplied, and the departwith great politeness, but he cared very ment will meet, if able, or refuse, if not,

Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker.

little for their opinion, and was as lenient towards the journals whose language was inimical to him as to those professing to be his friends. The representative of a radical journal once asked him why he allowed a certain "Copperhead" journal to circulate in his army. "Well, I'll see about it," said Hooker. Sometime afterward, when asked by the same party why he did not suppress it, he replied that he "had read it carefully every day for two weeks, and was still looking for the overt act which would justify him in doing it." Nothing more was said about the suppression of newspapers by that party.

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Tapping the Telegraphic Wires.

The telegraph line between Memphis and Corinth was exceedingly important. General Halleck's messages all passed over it. But little of the line was guarded, for the rebels refrained from cutting the wires; they found a better use for them.

The Memphis operators detected something wrong in the working of the instruments, and surmised that some outsider was sharing their telegraphic secrets. They communicated this suspicion to the superintendent at Corinth, who promised to keep a sharp lookout. They soon after

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wards discovered that their uninvited conInability to furnish Supplies to both Armies. fidant could talk as well as listen. The It was regarded as a necessity by our transmission of a message was suddenly men that they should throw off their interrupted by the ejaculation "O pshaw!" blankets and great coats, in order for them A moment after it was again broken with

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