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the people living on their borders, especially if it should be content with defending them against dangers, carrying their mails, and distributing among them rewards and honors, while it left them in the possession of rights of self-government in a degree elsewhere un

known.

June 27, 1862. Our military and naval forces at Charleston were kept at figures only necessary to aid in maintaining the blockade while conflict has been challenged at some important strategic points. We learn that our generals, perhaps too impulsive, have, without instructions, made an attack and have been repulsed at Charleston. While the affair may serve to encourage the languishing hopes of the insurgents, it no more than Jackson's late raid in the Shenandoah valley affects the actual progress of the The operations against Richmond continue to go on to the satisfaction of the military department.

war.

June 30, 1862. — The reports from the army near Richmond concerning the events of the past few days are somewhat imperfect, owing to a temporary interruption of telegraphic communication.

General McClellan, at the commencement of his operations in the vicinity of Richmond, used for his supplies and communications the line formed by the York and Pamunkey rivers, and the railroad from the point where it crosses the latter stream at White House to his camps on the Chickahominy. At the period when this line was adopted the James River had not yet been opened by our gunboats.

In carrying out his plan of operations against Richmond, General McClellan has been, as rapidly as practicable, transferring the greater portion of his force to the south side of the Chickahominy. This, on the one hand, left his line of communication by way of the White House more or less exposed, but, on the other, brought him nearer to the James River, and enabled him to open a new line of communication there. On Thursday and Friday of last week, not unexpectedly to him, the enemy assailed the force which still occupied the north side of the Chickahominy, thus precipitating the movement above described as in progress. A severe engagement ensued, with considerable loss of life, but little or none of material. He succeeded, however, in completing the transfer of his troops and supplies to the south side of the Chickahominy and in opening communication with our fleet on James River. His position now, there

fore, as compared with his previous one, is advanced nearer to Richmond, and covers ground hitherto held by the enemy, and he has exchanged one main line of communication for another.

From the west all accounts are satisfactory. The power of the enemy to attempt offensive demonstrations of any magnitude is practically destroyed. The fortifications at Vicksburg are the only obstacles remaining to our complete control of the navigation of the Mississippi River, and in view of the preparations now making no doubt is entertained of their early reduction. The loyal sentiment is becoming gradually developed in the regions occupied by the troops of the United States.

July 7, 1862.- I fear that the press, speaking as it does under the influence of a hundred various forms of excitement arising out of the incidents of the last ten days, will bewilder, if it does not for the moment confound, our representatives abroad.

The military situation is, however, clearly intelligible, and ought to be satisfactory to the cool and candid judgment of the country. From the Mississippi we learn that, after a long and vigorous bombardment of Vicksburg, Commodore Farragut passed the batteries at that place from below, and joined himself to the fleet which lay above it. Thus the last obstacle of the navigation of the Mississippi has been overcome, and it is open to trade once more under the flag of the Union from the head waters of its tributaries near the lakes and Prince Rupert's Land to the Gulf of Mexico.

White River and the Yazoo have been cleared of all hostile armaments. We have a rumor that Vicksburg has actually been taken. But the report is premature, although we have no doubt but the capture has, before this time, occurred.

The fleet under Commodore Goldsborough has been efficient in seizing and bringing into port many British vessels carrying contraband, and insured at Lloyd's against the perils of the blockade. So that it may be expected risks of this kind will sensibly diminish. On the coast all is safe and well.

In the west General Halleck is pushing a force from Corinth eastward without any show of organized resistance to capture Chattanooga and close the only remaining railroad communication between Richmond and the valley of the Mississippi. This achievement will effect deliverance of eastern Tennessee, distinguished for its loyalty, and so crown the pacification of the whole region west of the Alle

ghany mountains, north of Georgia and Alabama, and south of the Ohio River. But it is the vicinity of Richmond that has been the scene of military events of the intensest interest during the last two weeks, and it is that quarter that now chiefly engages the attention of the government.

General McClellan's original design for the capture of Richmond embraced a march up the peninsula from Fortress Monroe and Yorktown, supported by naval forces on both the York and the James River. The sudden appearance of the Merrimack, with her terrible power of mischief, obliged him to confine his march to the bank of the York River, with the aid of a fleet in that river alone. He had, then, the Chickahominy, with its variable flow, and its almost impassable swamps, between him and Richmond. The Pamunkey, the chief tributary of the York, afforded him navigation only to the White House, where he held his forces, twenty miles from Richmond, without any other coöperation from our naval force on both rivers there than protection they afforded to his rear. A large force that was intended to be auxiliary to the army of the Potomac was retained in front of Washington, necessarily, as it was thought, with a view to the safety of the capital against forces sent to menace it from Richmond. While General McClellan was thus obtaining a foothold on the peninsula north of the Chickahominy, the insurgents succeeded in obstructing the James River a distance of seven miles below Richmond, and in constructing fortifications at Fort Darling, up a precipitous elevation on the south bank of the James River, which rendered it impossible for the fleet on that river to remove the obstructions without the aid of a land force to carry that fort. General McClellan was steadily, and, as it seemed, successfully, moving his army across the Chickahominy to change his base to the James River, below Fort Darling, on Wednesday last, when the insurgents concentrated large forces upon what was yet the front of the moving column, and a series of battles began which filled up seven successive days, at the end of which the general, with his army, and substantially all his material, had reached and established himself at Harrison's Bar, upon the bank of the James River, in full coöperation with the fleet of seventeen gunboats, while the insurgents have not one man-of-war. This movement, which was a meditated, prepared one, undoubtedly became a retreat when the enemy pressed upon the withdrawing forces. The change of base

involved a loss of communication for a time between the army and the government and the country. During this suspense, which lasted seven days, extravagant reports of disasters and losses, and the wildest alarm for even the safety of the army itself, obtained currency, and oppressed the public mind. At length we have the results so far as they affect the military situation. There have been immense losses, but more severe on the part of the insurgents than on that of the Union. The efficiency of the army of the latter is improved. That of the former, it is believed, is even more reduced. Every one of the battles was a repulse of the insurgents, and the two last, which closed the series, were decided victories. The army of the Potomac is rapidly receiving reinforcements from several sources, while the fleet is thought already equal in effect to an additional army. General Pope, having taken command of all the troops in Virginia, is pushing them forward from the north to cut off the railroad communication beyond the Rappahannock, and threatens them on the approach from the northwest. Within the next thirty days our navy, already large, will receive an augmentation of ten new iron-clad vessels, each equal to the Monitor. the same time the President, upon the invitation of the governors of twenty of the thirty-four states, has called out three hundred thousand men, a force amply sufficient to save all that has been gained, and speedily close the civil strife.

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You will read with interest and admiration General McClellan's modest conduct; his firm and decisive despatches and proclamation. The government and popular bodies who have heretofore been so efficient in filling up the armies are already in activity, and the prompt success of the call is deemed assured. The destruction of human life which has occurred is a sad and painful theme. But it brings its compensation in a military and in a political view, aspects in which it is now our stern duty to contemplate it. The delusion that the soldiers of the Union would not fight for it with as much courage and resolution as its enemies will fight against it, has been one of the chief elements of the insurrection. It has now been effectually dispelled.

Secondly. If, as fatalists argue, a certain quantity of human blood must flow to appease the dreadful spirit of faction, and enable a discontented people to recover its calmness and its reason, it may be hoped that the needful sacrifice has now been made.

Thirdly. If the representative parties had now to choose whether they would have the national army where it is and as it is, or back again where it was and as it was, it is not to be doubted that the insurgents would prefer to it the position and condition on the Pamunkey, and the friends of the Union the one now attained on the bank of the James.

Fourthly. The insurgents and the world abroad will see that the virtue of the people is adequate to the responsibilities which Providence has cast upon them.

July 9, 1862. Mr. Stuart,1 in a very courteous manner, verbally expressed to me the opinion of her Majesty's government, that Major-General Butler's order concerning the females in New Orleans who gave offence to the Union soldiers was an improper one in respect to the expressions employed in it, whatever constructions might be placed upon them, and their hope, therefore, that it might be disapproved.

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I answered him that we must ask his government, in reading that proclamation, to adopt a rule of construction which the British nation had elevated to the dignity of a principle and made the motto of their national arms, "Honi soit qui mal y pense.' That it was not until a gross construction of the order was brought to the knowledge of this government that we saw that the proclamation contained un double entendre. That gross meaning the government of course rejected, and it regretted that in the haste of composition a phraseology which could be mistaken or perverted had been used. I was happy, however, to inform him that all sensibility about the order seemed to have passed away, and no complaints were now heard of any impropriety of conduct on the part of the ladies of New Orleans. I explained also to Mr. Stuart the ground of the sensibility of our army to female discourtesy. Our soldiers are mainly young American citizens of education and respectability. Chivalrous respect to the sex is a national sentiment. Hitherto it has been met by gentle and respectful courtesy by those to whom the homage is so properly paid. It has not been expected that disloyalty to the common government of both parties would be regarded as a plea for a change of national manners. Happily all classes of citizens easily learn to meet the changes which this unhappy civil war brings upon us.

1 Of the British Legation. Lord Palmerston called Mr. Adams' attention to the same subject.

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