a question of Southern rights-which have never been violated-nor of the security of Southern institutions, which we know perfectly well have never been interfered with by the General Government, but it is purely with us a question of national existence. In meeting this terrible issue which rebellion has made up with the loyal men of the country, we stand upon ground infinitely above all party lines and party platforms-ground as sublime as that on which our fathers stood when they fought the battles of the Revolution. I am for throwing into the contest thus forced upon us all the material and moral resources and energies of the nation, in order that the struggle may be brief and as little sanguinary as possible. It is hoped that we shall soon see in the field half a million of patriotic volunteers, marching in columns which will be perfectly irresistible, and, borne in their hands-for no purpose of conquest or subjugation, but of protection only -we may expect within nine months to see the Stars and Stripes floating in every Southern breeze, and hear going up, wild as the storm, the exultant shout of that emancipated people over their deliverance from the revolutionary terror and despotism by which they are now tormented and oppressed. The war, conducted on such a scale, will not cost exceeding four or five hundred millions of dollars; and none need be startled at the vastness of this expenditure. The debt thus created will press but slightly upon us; it will be paid and gladly paid by posterity, who will make the best bargain which has been made since the world began, if they can secure to themselves, in its integrity and blessings, such a Government as this, at such a cost. But, if in this anticipation we are doomed to disappointment; if the people of the United States have already become so degenerate-may I not say so craven-in the presence of their foes as to surrender up this Republic to be dismembered and subverted by the traitors who have reared the standard of revolt against it, then, I trust, the volume of American history will be closed and sealed up forever, and that those who shall survive this national humiliation will take unto themselves some other name, some name baving no relation to the past, no relation to our great ancestors, no relation to those monuments and battle-fields which commemorate alike their heroism, their loyalty, and their glory. neighbor of his forts, his arsenals, his arms, his Nor are we at all disturbed by the flippant taunt that, in thus submitting to the authority of our Government, we are necessarily cowards. We know whence this taunt comes, and we estimate it at its true value. We hold that there is a higher courage in the performance of duty than in the commission of crime. The tiger of the jungle and the cannibal of the South Sea Islands. have that courage in which the revolutionists of the day make their especial boast; the angels of God and the spirits of just men made perfect have had, and have that courage which submits to the law. Lucifer was a non-submissionist, and the first secessionist of whom history has given us any account, and the chains which he wears fitly express the fate due to all who openly defy the laws of their Creator and of their country. He rebelled because the Almighty would not yield But with the curled lip of scorn we are told to him the throne of heaven. The principle of by the disunionists that, in thus supporting a the Southern rebellion is the same. Indeed, in Republican Administration in its endeavors to this submission to the laws is found the chief uphold the Constitution and the laws, we are distinction between good men and devils. A "submissionists," and when they have pro- good man obeys the laws of truth, of honesty, nounced this word, they suppose they have of morality, and all those laws which have imputed to us the sum of all human abasement. been enacted by competent authority for the Well, let it be confessed, we are "submission-government and protection of the country in ists," and weak and spiritless as it may be deemed by some, we glory in the position we occupy. For example, the law says, "Thou shalt not steal; we would submit to this law, and would not for the world's worth rob our which he lives; a devil obeys only his own ferocious and profligate passions. The principle on which this rebellion proceeds, that laws have in themselves no sanctions, no binding force upon the conscience, and that every man, under the promptings of interest, or passion, or caprice, may at will, and honorably, too, strike at the Government that shelters him, is one of utter demoralization, and should be trodden out as you would tread out a spark that has fallen on the roof of your dwelling. Its unchecked prevalence would resolve society into chaos, and leave you without the slightest guarantee for life, liberty, or property. It is time, that, in their majesty, the people of the United States should make known to the world that this Government, in its dignity and power, is something more than a moot court, and that the citizen who makes war upon it is a traitor, not only in theory but in fact, and should have meted out to him a traitor's doom. The country wants no bloody sacrifice, but it must and will have peace, cost what it may. Before closing, I desire to say a few words on the relations of Kentucky to the pending rebellion; and as we are all Kentuckians here together to-night, and as this is purely a family matter, which concerns the honor of us all, I hope we may be permitted to speak to each other upon it with entire freedom. I shall not detain you with any observations on the hostile and defiant position assumed by the Governor of your State. In his reply to the requisition upon him for volunteers under the proclamation of the President, he has, in my judgment, written and finished his own history, his epitaph included, and it is probable that in future the world will little concern itself as to what his Excellency may propose to do, or as to what he may propose not to do. That response has made for Kentucky a record which has already brought a burning blush to the cheek of many of her sons, and is destined to bring it to the cheek of many more in the years that are to come. It is a shame, indeed a crying shame, that a State with so illustrious a past should have written for her, by her own chief magistrate, a page of history so utterly humiliating as this. But your Legislature have determined that during the present unhappy war the attitude of the State shall be that of strict neutrality, and it is upon this determination that I wish respectfully but frankly to comment. As the motives which governed the Legislature were doubtless patriotic and conservative, the conclusion arrived at cannot be condemned as dishonorable; still, in view of the manifest duty of the state and of possible results, I cannot but regard it as mistaken and false, and one which may have fatal consequences. Strictly and legally speaking, Kentucky must go out of the Union before she can be neutral. Within it she is necessarily either faithful to the Government of the United States, or she is disloyal to it. If this crutch of neutrality, upon which the well-meaning but ill-judging politicians are halting, can find any middle ground on which to rest, it has escaped my researches, though I have diligently sought it. Neutrality, in the sense of those who now use the term, however patriotically designed, is, in effect, but a snake | | in the grass of rebellion, and those who handle it will sooner or later feel its fangs. Said one who spake as never man spake, "He who is not with us is against us;" and of none of the conflicts which have arisen between men or between nations, could this be more truthfully said than of that in which we are now involved. Neutrality necessarily implies indifference. Is Kentucky indifferent to the issues of this contest? Has she, indeed, nothing at stake? Has she no compact with her sister States to keep, no plighted faith to uphold, no renown to sustain, no glory to win? Has she no horror of that crime of crimes now being committed against us by that stupendous rebellion which has arisen like a tempest-cloud in the South? We rejoice to know that she is still a member of this Union, and as such she has the same interest in resisting this rebellion that each limb of the body has in resisting a poignard whose point is aimed at the heart. It is her house that is on fire; has she no interest in extinguishing the conflagration? Will she stand aloof and announce herself neutral between the raging flames and the brave men who are perilling their lives to subdue them? Hundreds of thousands of citizens of other States-men of culture and character, of thought and of toilmen who have a deep stake in life, and an intense appreciation of its duties and responsibilities, who know the worth of this blessed Government of ours, and do not prize even their own blood above it-I say, hundreds of thousands of such men have left their homes, their workshops, their offices, their counting-houses, and their fields, and are now rallying about our flag, freely offering their all to sustain it, and since the days that crusading Europe threw its hosts upon the embattled plains of Asia, no deeper, or more earnest, or grander spirit has stirred the souls of men than that which now sways those mighty masses whose gleaming banners are destined ere long to make bright again the earth and sky of the distracted South. Can Kentucky look upon this sublime spectacle of patriotism unmoved, and then say to herself: "I will spend neither blood nor treasure, but I will shrink away while the battle rages, and after it has been fought and won, I will return to the camp, well assured that if I cannot claim the laurels, I will at least enjoy the blessings of the victory"? Is this all that remains of her chivalry-of the chivalry of the land of the Shelbys, the Johnsons, the Allens, the Clays, the Adairs, and the Davieses? Is there a Kentuckian within the sound of my voice to-night, who can hear the anguished cry of his country as she wrestles and writhes in the folds of this gigantic treason, and then lay himself down upon his pillow with this thought of neutrality, without feeling that he has something in his bosom which stings him worse than would an adder? Have we, within the brief period of eighty years, descended so far from the mountain heights on which our fathers stood, that already, in our degeneracy, we proclaim our blood too precious, our treasure too valuable to of antagonism. Your inaction is a virtual inbe devoted to the preservation of such a Gov-dorsement of the rebellion, and if you do not ernment as this? They fought through a sev- thereby give to the rebels precisely that "aid en years' war with the greatest power on earth, and comfort" spoken of in the Constitution, for the hope, the bare hope, of being able to you certainly afford them a most powerful enfound this republic, and now that it is no longer couragement and support. That they regard a hope nor an experiment, but a glorious re- your present position as friendly to them, is ality, which has excited the admiration and the proved by the fact that, in a recent enactment homage of the nations, and has covered us with of the Confederate Congress confiscating the blessings as "the waters cover the channels of debts due from their own citizens to those of the sea," have we, their children, no years of loyal States, the debts due to the people of toil, of sacrifice, and of battle even, if need be, Kentucky are expressly excepted. Is not this to give, to save it from absolute destruction at significant? Does it leave any room for doubt the hands of men who, steeped in guilt, are per- that the Confederate Congress suppose they petrating against us and humanity a crime, for have discovered, under the guise of your neuwhich I verily believe the blackest page of the trality, a lurking sympathy for their cause history of the world's darkest period furnishes which entitles you to be treated as friends, if no parallel! Can it be possible that in the his- not as active allies? Patriotic as was the purtory of the American people we have already pose of her apprehensive statesmen in placing reached a point of degeneracy so low, that the her in the anomalous position she now occupies, work of Washington and Franklin, of Adams it cannot be denied that Kentucky by her presand Jefferson, of Hancock and Henry, is to be ent attitude is exerting a potent influence in overthrown by the morally begrimed and pig- strengthening the rebellion, and is, therefore, mied conspirators who are now tugging at its false alike to her loyalty and to her fame. You foundation? It would be the overturning of may rest well assured that this estimate of your the Andes by the miserable reptiles that are neutrality is entertained by the true men of the crawling in the sands at their base. country in all the States which are are now sustaining the Government. Within the last few weeks how many of those gallant volunteers who have left home and kindred, and all that is dear to thein, and are now under a southern sun, exposing themselves to death from disease and to death from battle, and are accounting their lives as nothing in the effort they are making for the deliverance of your Government and theirs; how many of them have said to me in sadness and in longing, "Will not Kentucky help us?" How my soul would have leaped could I have answered promptly, confidently, exultingly, "Yes, she will!" But when I thought of this neutrality my heart sank within me, and I did not and I could not look those brave men in the face. And yet I could not answer, "No." I could not crush myself to the earth under the self-abasement of such a reply. I therefore said-and may my country sustain me-"I hope, I trust, I pray, nay, I believe Kentucky will yet do her duty." But our neutral fellow-citizens in the tenderness of their hearts say: "This effusion of blood sickens us." Then do all in your power to bring it to an end. Let the whole strength of this commonwealth be put forth in support of the Government, in order that the war may be terminated by a prompt suppression of the rebellion. The longer the struggle continues, the fiercer will be its spirit, and the more fearful the waste of life attending it. You therefore only aggravate the calamity you deplore by standing aloof from the combat. But again they say, "We cannot fight our brethren." Indeed? But your brethren can fight you, and with a good will, too. Wickedly and wantonly have they commenced this war against you and your institutions, and ferociously are they prosecuting it. They take no account of the fact that the massacre with which they hope their swords will, ere long, be clogged, must be the massacre of their brethren. However much we may bow our heads at the confession, it is If this Government is to be destroyed, ask nevertheless true that every free people that yourselves are you willing it shall be recorded have existed have been obliged, at one period in history that Kentucky stood by in the greator other of their history, to fight for their liber-ness of her strength and lifted not a hand to ties against traitors within their own bosoms, and that people who have not the greatness of soul thus to fight, cannot longer continue to be free, nor do they deserve to be so. There is not, and there cannot be, any neutral ground for a loyal people between their own Government and those who, at the head of armies, are menacing its destruction. Your inaction is not neutrality, though you may delude yourselves with the belief that it is so. With this rebellion confronting you, when you refuse to cooperate actively with your Government in subduing it, you thereby condemn the Government, and assume toward it an attitude stay the catastrophe? If it is to be saved, as I verily believe it is, are you willing it shall be written that, in the immeasurable glory which must attend the achievement, Kentucky had no part? I will only add, if Kentucky wishes the waters of her beautiful Ohio to be dyed in blood-if she wishes her harvest fields, now waving in their abundance, to be trampled beneath the feet of hostile soldiery, as a flowergarden is trampled beneath the threshings of the tempest-if she wishes the homes where her loved ones are now gathered in peace, invaded by the proscriptive fury of a military despotism, sparing neither life nor property-if | informed that these provisions were to be sent she wishes the streets of her towns and cities for to-night (July 14) by some person who was grown with grass, and the steamboats of her riv- to convey them and the negroes on the plantaers to lie rotting at her wharves, then let her join tion to the Southern army. On this representhe Southern Confederacy; but if she would have tation, he took into possession three horses, and the bright waters of that river flow on in their the negroes harnessed up one four-mule team gladness-if she would have her harvests peace- to a wagon, and one two-mule team to a wagon, fully gathered to her garners-if she would and got in, to the number of ten, of their own have the lullabies of her cradles and the songs accord, and drove to my camp. of her homes uninvaded by the cries and terrors of battle-if she would have the streets of her towns and cities again filled with the hum and throngs of busy trade, and her rivers and her shores once more vocal with the steamer's whistle,―that anthem of a free and prosperous commerce, then let her stand fast by the Stars and Stripes, and do her duty, and her whole duty as a member of this Union. Let her brave people say to the President of the United States: You are our chief magistrate; the Government you have in charge, and are striving to save from dishonor and dismemberment, is our Government; your cause is indeed our cause; your battles are our battles; make room for us, therefore, in the ranks of your armies, that your triumph may be our triumph also." 66 Even as with the Father of us all I would plead for salvation, so, my countrymen, as upon my very knees, would I plead with you for the life, aye for the life, of our great and beneficent institutions. But if the traitor's knife, now at the throat of the republic, is to do its work, and this Government is fated to add yet another to that long line of sepulchres which whiten the highway of the past, then my heartfelt prayer to God is, that it may be written in bistory, that the blood of its life was not found upon the skirts of Kentucky! Doc. 91. REPORT OF COL. DAVIES. HEAD-QUARTERS, 2D BRIGADE 1D, VISION, ALEXANDRIA, July 14, 1861. To Col. Miles, Commanding 5th Division Troops, Department of Northeastern Virginia. SIR:-In pursuance of your verbal order of yesterday, I made a reconnoissance on the Fairfax road, seven miles out, and on the Richinond road about ten miles, and on the Mount Vernon road as far as Mount Vernon. The pickets on the Fairfax road captured a newly-painted ambulance, containing a set of harness and two bags of buckwheat. On the curtain, on the inside, was distinctly written in pencil, "John Hughes, Fairfax." The picket on the Richmond road saw three horsemen, who, by a dexterous turn, evaded a shot from the picket. The picket on the Mount Vernon road, in its diligence, discovered, on the premises of one John A. Washington, formerly a resident and still an occupant of a large estate near Mount Vernon, what was supposed to amount to eight thousand pounds of bacon, and seventy-five barrels of fish. The officer in charge of the picket was Deeming the transaction of sufficient consequence to merit my individual attention, and supposing that I might capture the force sent to convey these provisions away, I immediately ordered out three companies of the 10th Regiment, and, taking the two teams referred to and two others, proceeded to capture the provisions and bring them to camp. On arriving at the plantation I proceeded to make inquiry and ascertain if such an amount of provisions was really upon the place. I could not find any thing like the quantity of bacon-not more than sufficient, in my judgment, to carry on the operations of the plantation, whatever might have been there in the morning; but I found twenty-five barrels more fish (one hundred in all) than were at first represented. On looking the whole matter over, whatever may be my individual views as to the confiscation of the property of rebels, who are using it and its income to overthrow the Government, I considered that the case was not sufficiently plain to authorize me to retain the mule teams, or seize upon the fish and bacon, although their owner is well known to be an officer high in rank in the rebel army, and now in active command. As to the negroes, there being no law or orders directing me either to cause them to remain at home or to prevent them from volunteering to do team duty in my brigade, I shall allow them to remain until otherwise directed. I, however, have placed a guard over the provisions, the mules, and the wagons on the estate, and shall await your orders for their disposition. THOMAS A. DAVIES, Colonel Commanding 2d Brigade, 5th Division Doc. 92. MOVEMENT ON BUNKER HILL. BUNKER HILL, Berkeley Co., Va., July 16, 1861. GEN. PATTERSON moved, with his whole column, except two regiments, early yesterday morning to this place, where it is now encamped, ten miles from Martinsburg and twelve from Winchester. The army marched in two columns, one composed of the First Division, Major-General Cadwalader, and the Second Division, Major-General Kiem commanding; and the other of the Seventh and Eighth Brigades, Cols. Stone and Butterfield forming a Third Division, Major-General Sandford commanding. The First and Second Divisions came by the turnpike, and the Third by the old dirt roadboth roads converging at this point. The troops and wagons of the Third Division formed a column over five miles long, and the other column was seven or eight miles long, the van reaching here before the rear guard had got far out of Martinsburg. The army marched in different order from that of the column coming from Williamsport to Martinsburg, when the wagons accompanied their own brigades; on this occasion they were all kept in the rear, protected only by a small rear guard of infantry and cavalry. The Philadelphia City Troop were the rear guard of the column of the First and Second Divisions. Although the van of the army reached here before noon, the rear did not get into camp till long after dark. The whole force forms, probably, the largest body ever concentrated in one army in America. The column on the turnpike was seven or eight miles long, and that on the dirt road over five. As the troops filed out of the camps at Martinsburg and formed in long, dense columns on the roads, with bands playing and colors flying, the scene was well calculated to gratify the pride and patriotism of the North, and to make treason and rebellion quail in the South. Those hosts of soldiers-not "Northern mercenaries," as traitors have insolently called them, but Northern freemen-were marching forward in serried ranks, all animated by one sentiment and one purpose-the love of country, a broad national sentiment, with no mean sectional or State limits, and the firm resolve to conquer or die. Such an army, so inspired and so determined, could only impress friends with joy and pride, and foes with fear. scouting and have so many friends in the country. They have no tents, and camp under brushwood; and in one instance, only a few days ago, they robbed a farmer of the crop he had just cut by covering their camps with wheat-sheaves. We noticed a number of their old encampments near the road in coming here, some six or seven thousand men, under Gen. Jackson, having been in this neighborhood until ten days ago, when they retired to Winchester on a false alarm that Patterson was coming. -New York Tribune, July 20. Doc. 93. GEN. HURLBURT'S PROCLAMATION. To the Citizens of Northeast Missouri :— FALSE and designing men, secking the overthrow of a Government which they have known by its benefits and comforts, have so misled the minds of many of you, that armed opposition to the Constitution and the laws has, in many parts of your country, become the fashion of the times. It becomes my duty, as commanding a portion of the Government troops now in service in your section, to warn you that the time for toleration of treason has passed, and the man, or body of men, who venture to stand in defiance of the supreme authority of the Union, peril their lives in the attempt. It is a question now of free government under the Constitution your fathers made, or of no government. You must make your choice to obey, maintain, and support the Union which has given you every element of prosperity you have, or to deliver yourselves by your own folly into the hands of an irresponsible mob, excited by passion, crazy with prejudice, unable and unwilling to protect your Between the village of Darksville and Bunker lives, your property, or your reputation. If Hill the cavalry of the enemy, in command of you choose on your own free will to put Col. Stuart, made their appearance. The Rang-yourselves into this position, if you will delibers opened upon them, but they were too far off for their fire to be effective, and the troopers scattered and scampered off. At this place the whole squadron, some six or seven hundred, made a show of fight, and the Rhode Island Artillery threw a few shot and shell among them, when they again scampered. Our cavalry followed and overtook some of them, killing one sergeant, taking prisoners one captain, one lieutenant, and three privates, and capturing six horses. Three men were also killed by a shell, and carried off the ground by the rebel cavalry. There was no loss or damage on our side. The head of the column moving on the turnpike was Col. Thomas's Brigade, a detachment of the Second United States Cavalry, a section of the Rhode Island Battery, and McMullin's Rangers, acting as skirmishers, forming the advance guard. The rebel troopers had their camp a little beyond Bunker Hill, and were taken so completely by surprise that they lost their cooking utensils and a dinner just preparing, such as it was-corn bread and bacon. It seems singular that our whole army could move so near to their camp without their being apprised of its advance, when they usually keep up an active erately call down upon yourselves and your neighbors the curse of war, if you will compel the Executive power of the nation to put in motion among you the terrible machinery of the military service, remember when the blow comes that you have compelled it to descend upon you. Without your wrongful acts this would not be. Your peaceful and prospective pursuits would go on as usual, and your country would be free from armed occupation, as it was when you were loyal to the nation, as it is now wherever the idea of secession has not cursed the country. There is one simple and easy remedy for this state of things, and that remedy is in your hands; it is a return to the old habits of trust, confidence, and affection for the Union, to the old peaceful times when every man was protected by the law, and loved the law for the blessings it conferred. Thus much of warning and advice to those who have been swept along with this tide of evil influence. The character of the resistance |