SUNDAY
MARCH 5, 1865
THE DAILY PICAYUNE (LA)

How Negro Soldiers re to be Uniformed.
[From the Richmond Examiner, Feb. 17.]

Cases of uniforms, to the number of four or five thousand suits, are lying piled up in Government depots in Richmond and elsewhere. White soldiers have an objection to being served with this clothing, no matter how neat and clean, and it has therefore been a question how to dispose of this immense stock so as to make it available to meet existing wants. The opportunity is at last presented. It is admitted that the Negro is to become a military element in the Confederate army. This accumulation of second hand clothing will equip him from top to toe, and save the Government the expense, save that of putting a musket in his hands, and there are thousands of them to be had. Hurry up the Negro, and let him get into the old clothes as soon as possible.

•••••

If you are not disposed to go a-soldiering, and are in danger of the draft, you can step out of it by going into the office of Messrs. A. S. Newhouse &  Co., No. 19 St. Charles st. They are experienced persons, know how and when to procure substitutes, and can furnish you with one at the shortest notice. Nay, if you only wish your mind to be at ease as to your liability, they will insure you against being drawn and placed in the army. They will furnish you reference  the most satisfactory of their fidelity and trustiness.

•••••

Letter from Cairo.
[Special Correspondence of the Picayune.]

Cairo, Feb. 24, 1865.

Another stronghold is lost to the Confederacy. Wilmington was taken possession of by the United States forces on the morning of the 22d inst. This intelligence was received here to-day with almost universal joy. One by one the links are being severed that united the rebellious States. From present indications the probabilities are that in a few more months the Confederacy will scarcely have a sea port that it can safely call its own. The war will then be carried into the heart of the insurgent States, where Greek will greet Greek in many a bloody conflict before the termination of this fatal and melancholy struggle.

Another important item in the dispatches this morning is the announcement that the Confederate House of Representatives have resolved upon the arming of 200,000 Negroes, and it was admitted that the Senate would ratify the bill without delay. The Richmond Examiner of the 15th inst. says: “It is well known that Gen. Lee urgently calls for a large force of Negroes;” and it is, no doubt, in deference to this call that the rebel Congress yielded in its prejudice to arming the blacks. Freedom for those who fight does not appear to be in contemplation, for a motion was made to invest Gen. Lee with “full power to call into the service of the Confederate States so many of the able-bodied slaves as in his judgments the exigencies of the public service may require;” and the Examiner says: “If we must use Negroes in defence of our homes, let us do it; but for their sakes as well as our own, let us beware of giving any consent or adhesion to the doctrine that people of that race gain by being turned wild–or made free, if we are to use that improper Yankee cant.” ->

The probability is that the responsibility will be thrown upon Gen. Lee, as his well known popularity and determination will screen him from the wrath of Richmond’s fiery press, and make the more noisy members of the Legislature speak with “bated breath and whispering humbleness.”

Some of the papers publish an editorial from the Raleigh Whig, which strongly calls for peace, and affirms “that it is worse than madness for us [the rebels] to continue the one-sided conflict.” The Whig acknowledges that their armies, “with but one single illustrious exception, have been defeated, decimated, or annihilated;” and calls Jeff Davis “the evil genius of the South,” who has “done more than all the Yankee generals combined to defeat our armies and crush out the military ardor of our people.” The Whig will accept anything–peace, honorable or dishonorable, with or without slavery–the old Union–anything under heaven is preferable, it says, “to the utter, irretrievable ruin now awaiting us.” If this language was used before the capture of Wilmington, what may we not expect to hear from the Whig when it learns of the “giving up” of that hotbed where foreign speculators hatched their contraband eggs and grew fat upon the ruin and misery of the people with whom they bartered their contraband wares?

According to the Selma (Ala.) Mississippian, the 39th Mississippi Regiment, which numbered 700 when it left Florence for Nashville, came back to Corinth with only fifteen rank and file! The 37th Mississippi left Florence with over 600 men, and arrived at Corinth with sixty-three men and six officers. This is a fearful mortality–nearly two whole regiments annihilated! About two or three weeks since I heard a lady, who had lately resided in Fayette county, Miss., make a statement similar to this, with the exception that the numbers of the regiments had escaped her memory. The lady herself had lost a brother in one of the regiments, and only heard of his death through the agency of a Negro who had followed his master to the field.

Very little importance was attached to the dispatch published this morning, coming from the Washington correspondent of the Philadelphia Press, stating that Lee had attacked Grant and that the latter had met with a reverse. All accounts for several days previous would go to show a fight at all, at present, as very improbable. The roads are represented as being in the poorest condition; and furthermore, it is scarcely probable that Lee would take the initiative move for a fight under present circumstances. A Washington dispatch of as late a date as that sent to Forney’s paper, says: “No apprehensions exist here about Sherman, as Grant will keep Lee fully occupied in defending Richmond.” Had Grant then been engaged in a fight, it is more than probable we should have heard it officially from Secretary Stanton, who is one of the greatest war bulletin writers if modern times.

MONDAY
MARCH 6, 1865
THE MACON DAILY TELEGRAPH (GA)

Drunkenness In and Out of the Army.

Morality is the chief basis of Divine Law, and the true theory of life is strict conformity to the government in harmony therewith. In this view we would urge the momentous inquiry–we would ask in words of solemn and serious import–What evil, more than all others, retards our progress and thwarts our success in this struggle for independence? What is the most fruitful source of disaster to our armies in the field? What is it that has lowered the standard of morality at home? What is it that has filled so many hearts, the mass of society, the whole land, with a moral leprosy worse than death–poisoning the fountain of excellence, draining the springs of happiness and undermining our social structure? We verily believe the cause, in the main, is traceable to the fell spirit of intemperance–to the conduct of those at home and in the army who have given way to the allurements of the fiery serpent–to the spirit of a fearful and growing habit which, if not arrested in its demoniac course, will sap the purity of the Church, destroy the fabric of State, and ultimately accomplish our destruction. This is a serious question. It addresses itself in “words of truth and soberness” to the lover of his country. It should enlist the Church, the moralist and the world. It appeals with peculiar force and earnestness to the commanders of our armies–in their hands repose our common destinies. We need not go far to illustrate this evil. It may be seen and felt everywhere. Briareus-like it rises upon the vie from every town, city and hamlet in the land. It preludes disaster to our armies on the battle field. It revels in camp, and riots in the street. It staggers in the light of stars and bars, and reels in the step of the private. It meets us in the conduct of the citizen. It holds revelry in the midnight orgies, and blockade the streets by day.

It were vain to attempt a portrayal of the evils of drunkenness to our cause–the fatal thrust with which it seeks to stab success–the March-tide it pours upon our stream of happiness. Indeed, it is a monster of such fearful proportions, that the voice of all good patriots, the prayers of all true Christians, the fiat of our commanders in the field, the arm of civil law, and the public sentiment at home, should combine in a mighty and irresistible effort to eradicate it from the land.

Like a demon of hell let loose in our midst, drunkenness stalks abroad, prostrating morality, debasing genius, talent and truth–converting our armies into mobs and our country into lawlessness. “Like a pestilence it walketh at noonday,” blighting everything in its path; and at night it goes forth, firing the heart of the robber, the murdered, and the assassin. The pride of the brave it debases, the strength of the strong it lays low, and the mantle of virtue and purity is soiled by its baleful touch. More than all other evils, it is bringing ruin on our armies and general demoralization on our country. Like a vampire, crouching at the ventricles of the heart, ready to drink each drop of blood issuing from the fountain of life, and pouring in its stead a stream of poison which corrupts the farthest extremities and deranges the whole circulation. ->

What should be said of those who in high places degrade their position and debase their manhood in the sensualism of the beast? Should not a curse more damning than that of Ahasuerus be upon their souls, driving them forth in a pilgrimage of woe? Ishmael-like, the hand of every man should be against them, and the frowns of heaven be upon their paths.

The times demand the exercise of Spartan virtues; and he who fears to rebuke the evils that surround and threaten us with destruction, is a coward and unworthy the liberty he seeks to enjoy. It is the grave duty of every citizen to exert his influence in the promotion of general good; and nothing threatens to overwhelm us sooner than the evil of drunkenness.

•••••

Costly Dogs.–There are 80,000 dogs in Georgia, according to the Comptroller General’s Report. The food consumed in feeding them, says Mr. Ezzard, of the legislature, would fatten enough hogs to make 3,000,000 pounds of pork. A large revenue would arise from taxing these dogs, and many sheep would be saved, as the dogs would go by the board.

•••••

From the acts of some of the soldiers, from their remarks in conversation, from their letters with which the press of the country teems, we draw a sad, undeniable inference–they look with hatred upon the speculators and extortioners who are accumulating wealth while they, the heroic defenders of the country, are ill paid, ill fed and in rags, and their families, because of the high prices of all the necessaries of life, almost naked and famished. Vows of vengeance are heard; agrarianism is hinted at as the remedy to be applied when, the war being over, they will return to their impoverished and destitute homes.

•••••

From North Alabama.–A Confederate Captain who was within four miles of Huntsville about ten days ago, reports to the Montgomery Advertiser that the place is occupied by a force of the enemy, supposed to be about 30,000. The people generally seemed to have plenty to eat. Many in the country had been burnt out of house and home, but they were none the less loyal to the Confederate cause. The women, especially, (our informant says,) are the best grit in the world.

The enemy’s gunboats continue to ply up and down the Tennessee river from Chattanooga to Decatur. Their crews, every now and then, leave them and depredate upon the inhabitants on the south side, and capture some luck less Confederates who may venture neat to get a glimpse of the Canaan beyond the river, or hear from the objects of their heart’s affections. Recently, at Bash’s, not far from Whitesburg, were captured in this way, Major Tho. Taylor, of the 4th Alabama Cavalry, and Mr. Angelo Steele.

TUESDAY
MARCH 7, 1865
PROVIDENCE EVENING PRESS (RI) 

Toombs on the Rampage.

Robert Toombs, of Georgia, well known to our readers as the man who boasted that he would at some time call the roll of his slaves upon Bunker Hill; and who is an intense rebel of the rebels, has been edifying his neighbors by making a speech at Augusta.  It appears that the raid of Sherman through that state, joined to the reverses which have since befallen the rebel cause, in the loss of Savannah, Columbia, Charleston and Wilmington, has so disheartened the Georgians that they desired the rough and blustering Toombs to drop among them some crumbs of comfort to aid them in bearing their severe afflictions.

Toombs essayed the task, and a most lugubrious affair it was in the comfort line. Bold as the beef-eating Georgian is acknowledged to be, in this case even his surplus of brass failed him. He began well enough; pitched into the old government mother which had borne him whatever of position, fame or things to be valued he ever possessed, ranted in his usual style about slaves and slavery, appealed to the passions of the crowd around him, and in ten minutes from his opening found himself face to face with a greater despotism in Jeff Davis’s government than he could possibly picture by the grossest falsehood as belonging to the old government which as a rebel he had lifted his arm against.

In some way Mr. Toombs had to account for the rebel reverses. It would not do to admit that a cowardly Yankee “mud-sill” could make a better officer or soldier than the pink of the Southern aristocratic families; neither would it do to tell his hearers that when Sherman made his march through their entire State, that the chivalry fled in dismay at his approach; that the forces brought together to oppose him were very conveniently kept out of his path; that they evacuated towns and cities by the mere magic of Sherman’s presence and without firing a gun; and yet these were facts of which this boasting Falstaff of a Georgian knew full well, and so did the cowards whose open mouths drank in his bold and blustering sentences.

The only way in which he could avoid this unpleasant state of facts was to call the attention of Georgians to the central despotism at Richmond. This he did in his own way. He boldly charged that “our bad management and bad legislation are the great dangers which beset us. We must begin at the very root of the evil and apply the remedy.” He said concerning his old compeer and friend, Jeff Davis, with his advisers, “If they are incompetent or derelict, off with their heads–so much for Buckingham.” And then to prove that they ought to lose their heads he cited facts.

He asserted that a small mistake hundred million of dollars had been found in the Rebel exchequer accounts, and that the common soldiers had not been paid in a year. That if the soldier wanted corn to keep soul and body together, with muscle enough upon the latter to enable him to lift a musket, he must “press,” that is, steal it. The universal conscription had been such an engine of destruction in the hands of the government that it was ruining the army as well as the country. Toombs declared it “worked out.” He says further, “our currency is gone.”

We can imagine the sarcastic sting which accompanied the utterance of these sentences:

“We have refused to learn from the history of the past, and to shun the impractical follies of others. But the failure of the currency does not destroy our means of defence. We issue $500,000,000, and if we waste it, it didn’t cost much, we have still got the country.”

He said farther that they had “resources enough to whip forty Yankee nations, if we could call back the spirit of our departed heroes.” We, being Yankees, “guess” that there is where one of the troubles is located. “The spirit of the departed heroes” will not come back upon call. And judging from Toombs’ speech, and information gathered from other sources, what little “spirit” there is left in Dixie is sadly diluted, very expensive, difficult to obtain, and answers to the name of whiskey. We have no doubt the valiant Toombs said all his brave and false words to his neighbors, and told all the truths about the corruptions of Jeff Davis’s government, under the influence of that same “spirit.”

From the entire speech, we gather that Tomb was at sea, in a storm, rudderless and helpless, howling out his rage at everything, and only clear and sensible in one thing, from which he never varied. And that was the pertinacity with which his dark and perturbed spirit demanded that every one should cry–“On with the revolution!”

•••••

Indian Justice.–Many years ago when a gentleman from the central part of New Hampshire was in the central part of Pequawket country, attending to his property near the village of Fryeburg, a company of Indians from the Penobscot tribe came there for a temporary abode, and pitched their tents on an elevation near the Saco river. In passing to his lands, he noticed a squaw kneeling to pick strawberries, and creeping to the different parts of the patch that furnished the fruit. Her attitude struck him as singular, but he concluded she took that posture as most convenient for the purpose.

On his return, she had disappeared, and he supposed she had gone to sell the berries. But as he approached the settlement, he observed the unusual sight of an Indian carrying a squaw on his back. A nearer view showed him the person whom he saw in the strawberry field. After having witnessed the occurrence several times, on inquiry of the Indians as to the cause of this action, one of them replied: “He bad Indian. He drink much ‘occapee.’ He drunk, and Cheepie (devil) get in him. Then he put squaw’s feet in fire. They burn off.” As he looked he saw they were crippled and useless. The tribe resented the cruelty, and its council were about to decide on his immediate execution. But one of the elder and wiser of the number interposed his opinion, and gave this advice: “No shoot; make him live long as squaw live; make him carry squaw, when she want walk; when squaw die, then shoot.”

The decision was in accordance with this counsel, and thus secured the injured woman injured woman perpetual kind treatment from her husband. The fact of his own death as soon a she died made him careful to preserve her health and life; and the punishment of bearing her as his constant burden, as well as the compelled attention to her welfare, formed a striking example of the retributive shrewdness of “Indian justice.”

WEDNESDAY
MARCH 8, 1865
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE SENTINEL

Too Much Wind in Rebeldom.

The rebel papers complain of a superabundance of rhetoric. Everybody wants to talk for “the cause,” and nobody wants to fight for it. A Raleigh paper says of the late high-sounding proclamation of Gov. Vance of North Carolina–

“His Excellency is nearly as voluminous and far more windy than Joe Brown of Georgia; and if either of them has done anything to deliver their people from the sufferings they are enduring, save to proclamate, we have failed to see it.”

Gov. Joe Brown of Georgia, by the way, seems to be almost as great a vexation to the rebels as the John Brown whose “soul is marching on.” The Richmond Dispatch complains also of the rebel congress that it does nothing but talk while the country goes to ruin for lack of Negro soldiers. It says–

“We trust that when peace shall return to this belligerent land, and our universities and colleges are again in operation, there will be established in each of them a new department–the school of silence. Then, in due course of time, another generation will arise, which will appreciate at the proper value those representative bodies which, in times like these, discourse for months upon wind instruments, while that man of action, Gen. Lee, in vain points out the only means and hope of their salvation. One of the greatest charms of spring is that it puts an end to deliberative bodies, as it is one of the consolations of fall that it puts an end to the kindred bore and annoyance of mosquitoes. The land is wearied and disgusted with debates, addresses and high-sounding resolutions. The passage and enactment four months ago of any law putting into the field all able-bodied men, the representatives included, would have done for the physical and moral strength of the confederacy more than four months of continuous eloquence. It is vain now to deplore the past; but we may at least invoke the representatives of the people to spare the world any further infliction of speeches which do not answer the arguments of Grant and Sherman, and of appeals which are not distinguished by the Demosthenean attribute of action. We do not observe that Sherman was anywhere stopped in his march by the one thousand rounds of oratorical Parrott guns which governors and other public speakers let off at his advancing columns. Unless the representatives of the people take the field themselves and secure a position so close to the enemy that he can hear what they say, we have no hopes that he will put his fingers in his ears and run for his life.”

•••••

The Attitude of Napoleon.–The Paris correspondent of the New York Times, usually correct in his statements, gives the following as to the present opinions and intentions of the Emperor Napoleon:

“The dispatch announcing the meeting of the Hampton Roads peace conference was seen by the emperor an hour or two before his speech to the legislative bodies was delivered. The dispatch was published in all the evening and morning papers, along with the speech from the throne, with the exception of the Moniteur. In this paper the dispatch, contrary to custom, was omitted, both in the evening and morning editions, the object being to make it appear that the emperor announced the withdrawal of the French troops from Mexico before it was known that the North and South were going to unite and, perhaps, enforce the Monroe Doctrine. The Moniteur, as the official organ of the government, is the paper which is preserved in libraries for  historical purposes, and the emperor wished it to go into history that he was not driven out of Mexico by fear of  the Americans. ->

“It is not worth while to notice the rumors published, especially in Richmond, to this effect, that the emperor contemplates a speedy recognition of the South; he has never at any epoch of the war been as far from any such event as at the present moment. Not only does he intend not to interfere, but he intends to remove all pretext for our intervention in Mexico! And what more than that could be asked at present of Napoleon III? I may state also that, within  a very few days, his majesty has declared that there was no longer any hope for this rebellion–that to any impartial looker-on it must soon succumb.”

•••••

Severe Attack on Secretary Stanton.–The Tribune prints a long letter from J. H. Brown, its correspondent who has just been released from long imprisonment in the South, in which he throws the guilt of stopping exchanges upon Secretary Stanton, and blames him in no measured terms. He says:

“Again, and again, and again has the story been told, circulated and believed, that a general exchange of our prisoners would soon be made. From May 30, 1863, when the cartel was interrupted, to the present, this statement has been put forth, usually just before a draft, or when it was necessary to stifle the natural clamors of the people. And to serve this very needful purpose, some hundred, and once or twice some thousands, usually the sick and wounded, have been exchanged by a special arrangement. But nothing like a general exchange has been begun, and I am free to say, in my judgment, was ever contemplated at Washington. For the refusal to exchange, and for the darkness that enshrouds the entire question of the exchange, we are, to the best of my information, indebted to the secretary of war. It is, I have understood, his settled conviction not to exchange at all; that we can far better afford to do without our prisoners than the southerners can without theirs, and that our best policy is to retain all our captives and let the foe retain all of his until the end of the war. Regarded outside of the light of humanity, I think this view correct and wise; but when the secretary gives, as has been alleged, as one of his reasons that the time of many of our soldiers held in the South has expired, while those in our hands are enlisted for the war, there must be few who will not be shocked at the gross injustice done to our brave defenders, and at the entire cold-bloodedness of the man capable of arriving at such a conclusion.

“The loyal people of the Republic are not children or fools. They can bear to be fairly dealt with; they can comprehend matters of policy perhaps as well as some of the members of the cabinet; and they certainly have no relish to be blinded and bullied by an incompetent secretary, as others high in office are said to be, into measure that are neither apt nor advantageous. Let us have no more shuffling on the subject of the exchange. Let it be understood who is responsible for the thousands of deaths of our prisoners. Let secretary Stanton discharge his duties fitly or let him resign.”

THURSDAY
MARCH 9, 1865
THE SALEM REGISTER (MA)

War Items and Incidents.

The New York Times, alluding to the capture of the rebel General Early with twelve hundred of his men, remarks:

In September last, Gen. Early had an army in the Shenandoah Valley at least twenty-five thousand strong–the same army with which he had some time before menaced Washington and Baltimore; but Gen. Sheridan, as the whole country remembers, attacked, fought, defeated and pursued it, again and again, from Bunker Hill and Winchester to Fisher’s Hill, Cedar Creek, Mount Jackson and Luray, in September, October and November, and the final result of these brilliant engagements was the destruction of Early’s army, the capture of all his artillery and the putting hors de combat of nearly all his Generals–the campaign ending in the withdrawal of Early with two or three thousand men to a point near to that at which he was again set upon on Thursday last and met his fate.

The Richmond Enquirer informs us that when, a few days since, Generals Crooke and Kelly, capture at Cumberland, were conducted to Early’s headquarters, the latter addressed them thus:

“Take seats, gentlemen, I presume you are tired after your ride,” and then, added the hero of brilliant victories and stunning defeats, with an intensification of that tooth-comb peculiarity of his enunciation: “I expect some enterprising Yankee will be stealing off with me in the same one one of these days.”

Less than a week had elapsed, and Jubal found his presentiment, uttered in jest, fulfilled, and himself “in chancery.”

•••••

General Gilmore at a Fire.–Last week a fire broke out in a building near the ordnance yard at Hilton Head, when it absolutely became a matter of personal safety that every man in the vicinity should exert himself to the utmost to prevent the fire from igniting the powder and ammunition which was stored in dangerous proximity. Major Gen. Gilmore, who was on the ground in person, threw off his coat and worked with a will that must have astonished, and at the same time, mortified a few persons who were disinclined to render active aid. With a few exceptions the party present took hold and worked with all their might and main to subdue the flames.

At one time, the progress of the fire, Gen. Gilmore ordered a fellow who was standing with his hands in his pockets, to go to work with the others. The fellow, not recognizing the General, refused to obey, whereupon he suddenly found himself knocked heels over head on the sand. A half hour later, the force of active laborers was increased by one. As good luck would have it, only the two buildings mentioned were destroyed. With them was burned a considerable amount of government property, consisting mostly of books and documents. The muster-rolls of the Ordnance Department were consumed. Five thousand dollars in greenbacks, which were placed in a safe, were scorched so as to be useless for payment, but they will doubtless be identified and exchanged at the treasury Department.

At 5 o’clock the fire was nearly extinguished, but it was not until some hours later that the people at Hilton Head thoroughly comprehended the imminent danger that hung over them during the night. Had a single spark even found its way into the mass of powder stored but a few yards from the burning buildings, the result would have been a n appalling explosion, and such a flight of shot and shell would have ensued, that in all probability, not a house would have been left standing on the Head.

The Experiences of Deserters.–Now that so many of General Lee’s discontented soldiers daily come into our lines, it is interesting to know something of the risks which these men run in traversing the narrow strip of debatable ground which separates outposts of the two armies. We find the following bit of description in the correspondence of the New York Herald from the headquarters of the Second Corps:

“The dark nights are very favorable for the deserters from the rebel ranks, fifteen of whom reached these headquarters prior to nine o’clock this evening, while occasional shots on the picket line, heard as I write, indicate that others are performing the perilous journey. Our picket lines are out a short distance from the enemy’s, oftentimes in plain sight; and yet it is difficult for a person unaccustomed to seeing and conversing with deserters to appreciate the fortitude and determination required to travel from the one to the other. It is frequently made the subject of anxious thought for weeks prior to the attempt. Every opportunity is eagerly sought to study and become acquainted with the position of our lines to prevent becoming bewildered in the dark; and when at last the hour for the effort arrives, with stealthy step and anxious heart the deserter–weary of fighting in a cause which he has come to believe is utterly hopeless, weary of his rags and his little ration of corn meal–moves past the vidette, the first post of danger, and then on, stumbling through the black darkness, expecting each moment to hear the crack of the rifle and the whir of the ball; crouching behind a stump and straining his ear to catch the repetition of a sound which has startled him; plunging anon in some filthy pool, with which the woods in this vicinity abound, and lying there in the dark freezing water until satisfied that the noise from his fall has attracted no attention, from habit and hope of the promised reward clinging to his musket and accoutrements through all–and so he moves on until, with a suddenness which causes his heart to leap to his throat, he hears eh challenge which he had forgotten to expect, “Who goes there?” and in a moment afterwards he is beside the camp fire of his old enemy, eating with no greater eagerness than has been proffered him, the never stinted rations of Uncle am, though detained a little time at the picket line and at division headquarters, to which latter place they are first sent. That unsettled, nervous air which follows upon the escape from a great and well appreciated danger is observable in many deserters upon their arrival at the headquarters of the corps.”

•••••

Liquor at the Capitol.–The U. S. Senate on Monday, March 6, without dissent, voted to instruct the Sergeant-at-Arms to clear out from the Senate wing of the Capitol, all the arrangements made for the sale of intoxicating liquors, and to prohibit the sale hereafter.

In the other wing of the Capitol, this exclusion of spiritous liquors has been enforced by the Speaker, Mr. Colfax, during the whole of the late session.

FRIDAY
MARCH 10, 1865
THE CALEDONIAN (VT)

The Inauguration.
Special Dispatch to the Boston Journal.

Washington, March 4, 1865.

The rain ceased to fall about eight this morning, when flags were everywhere displayed, and military and fire companies began to assemble. The avenues and streets are very muddy, which will prevent civil associations from parading.

Eleven o’clock.–The rain has fallen incessantly for the past hour, sadly interfering with the grand display which it was intended to have made. The avenue is crowded with tens of thousands, trying to get shelter under umbrellas, awnings, &c.

The civic portion of the procession was almost wholly dispensed with. The procession comprised the military escort, the President and his private secretary in a covered carriage, flanked by 8th Ohio black horse cavalry, and vice president elect. A few veterans of the war of 1812 appeared in carriages with their old flag. The Washington and Philadelphia and Baltimore firemen appeared and made a fine display. The department buildings were all decorated with the American flag and streamers.

The capitol was at an early hour the center of attraction. A military guard kept the approaches clear, only admitting those gentlemen and ladies who had tickets, the fair sex largely predominating. The galleries, excepting the divisions reserved for diplomats and for reporters, were entirely filled with ladies, their gay attire resembling the gorgeous hues of a vats tulip bed.

A large number of chairs had been placed on the floor of the senate, intermingled with the seats of the senators. Soon the dignitaries began to arrive. Vice Admiral Farragut and Gen. Hooker headed a large delegation of navy and army officers. The diplomats were brilliant in court dress, and there were scores of governors, judges and other dignitaries.

At last high twelve arrived and the official existence of the congress was ended, Vice President Hamlin making a brief valedictory address.

Vice President Johnson, on taking his seat, made a few appropriate remarks. The President was announced, and Abraham Lincoln entered, escorted by a brilliant cortege of marshals.

In a few moments a procession was formed and the distinguished assemblage moved to the platform at the east front of the capitol, where the President delivered his brief inaugural in the presence of the assembled multitude. The weather was cloudy, but no rain fell.

The procession reached the capitol about a quarter to twelve, escorting the President elect. At a subsequent period, the President and vice President, together with the justices of the supreme court, members of congress, foreign ministers and other persons of distinction, assembled in the senate chamber.

Here the vice President took the oath of office, preceding it by an address. Chief Justice Chase administered the oath of office on the eastern portico, where the President delivered his inaugural address:

The Inaugural Address.

“Fellow Countrymen:

“At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention, and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented.

“The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all.

“With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil-war. All dreaded it–all sought to avoid it.

“While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war–seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation.

“Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

“One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. ->

To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!” If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope -- fervently do we pray– that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.

“Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.’

“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan–to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”

2 p.m. Just as the President concluded his appropriate remarks, the sun broke from among the clouds and lit up one of the most imposing scenes ever witnessed. In the background rose the Capitol, every window and vantage ground filled with ladies. On the platform encircling the President and Chief Justice were the diplomatic corps in their rich attire, the Supreme Court in their silken robes, and the Senators and Representatives. Before the platform were the people, thousands and thousands of them, from every section of the Republic, and still further removed were the military–white soldiers and black soldiers–standing to their arms beneath the Stars and Stripes.

When Chief Justice Chase administered the oath, the surrounding assemblage reverently bared their heads, and as Mr. Lincoln kissed the sacred volume there arose a deafening shout, the echoes of which rang far and wide.

When, at the conclusion of the ceremony, the pealing cannon announced that Abraham Lincoln had been inaugurated as President for the coming four years, the procession wended its way to the White House, and then the multitude slowly dispersed. This evening President Lincoln will receive all who call on him, and will give each visitor a cordial shake of the hand. “God save the President.”

•••••

A Great Shame.

The strange speech of Vice President Johnson at the inauguration is accounted for by his being drunk. The fact is generally stated and Mr. Johnson’s conduct leaves no chance to doubt it. He began his strange speech before he had taken the oath of office, and after taking the oath, which he accomplished with great difficulty, he endeavored to renew his rambling talk and to explain to the dignitaries around him his ideas of the nature of the oath he had just taken. The affair was becoming so disgraceful that some of the officials interfered and he was choked off. Mr. Johnson made another faux pas in attempting to administer the oath to the senators. He beckoned them up to touch the bible, and then motioned them away again, without administering the oath at all; and Mr. Forney, the clerk, was obliged to administer the oath.–Springfield Republican.

SATURDAY
MARCH 11, 1865
VERMONT JOURNAL

Concerning Petroleum.

Next to the war, Petroleum. Indeed, it is not far behind the war just now in the interest it excites and the excitement it creates. It is ahead of all gases, mines and minerals in the hold it has upon speculation, both scientific and financial. Men of science and men of money, and men without either science or money, are plunging headlong into Petroleum. Petroleum is a fever, an itch, a mania, a madness with some. The very air is full of oil, the very pavement is slippery with it, as it were. All a man’s five senses are assailed, conquered, carried by it. We can not help seeing it, nor hearing it, nor feeling it, nor tasting it, nor smelling it. It is on every hand and in every State, except the state of Moderation.

It may entertain our readers to furnish in a few words, something about the whence and wherefore of the oil called Petroleum. Professor Alexander von Millern, corresponding member of the Royal and Imperial Academy of Arts and Sciences at Vienna informs us that petroleum is “the work of subterranean fires, which raise or sublime the more subtile parts of bituminous matters that lie in their way. These parts being condensed into a liquor by the cold in the vaults of rocks, are there collected and ooze thence through clefts and apertures existing in the earth’s strata.”

According to professor Evans, of Marietta College, (Ohio), this oil “is raised to the surface by the direct pressure of a stream of water whose head is higher than the issue, as the jets of artesian wells are said to be produced.” But it is confessed by the learned “faculty” that no perfectly satisfactory theory of the genesis of subterranean oil has as yet been advanced. That question is mixed, and the thing itself is mixed–mixed with coal and salt water and gas, and what not. Coal beds underlie the oil wells in Burma and Pennsylvania. Fissures, we are told by Prf. Millern, “are filled with oil, and gas, and salt-water, and different wells strike them at different depths. The oil-bearing sand rocks seemed charged from top to bottom with gas, and blow off from every fissure as it is passed through by the augur.” Gas, then, is a powerful agency in the procuring of petroleum, as well as in the procuring of its “shareholders.”

Petroleum is found collected in reservoirs. Why, so found, how such reservoirs are created, and preserved, and what their dimensions, are questions about which also the scientific doctors differ, and therefore what are we to do about them? Look on and wonder. For the spectacle is richly worth our wonder, if not our “investment;” for this petroleum oil is certainly destined to play a large, nay a revolutionary part in the industry of the world. A learned and careful authority says:

“As a fuel, petroleum enters into numerous French patents. The people of the Caspian mix it with clay; the Norwegians with sawdust and clay. The refuse charcoal of the French furnace is mixed with charred peat or spent tar, and tar or pitch is added, and the whole ground or coked. As an illuminating agent, coal oil is fast supplanting the animal and vegetable oils. It has always been a lamp oil of India. It lights the streets of Genoa, but its natural odor is so disgusting that its use in Europe was, for a long time after its discovery in Lombardy, interdicted. Since the refining process was discovered, the trade has spread to every city of the Old and New World, and the annual number of patents for new forms of lamps and new kinds of candles shows how completely the kerosenes and paraffins are banishing the whale oils and tallows from the market.” ->

Petroleum has been found to have medicinal qualities of high importance. It is specially useful as an external application to cutaneous disease. Made into soap, it is a favorite toilet article. It is used for fuel. We are informed that:

“The experiment is being practically tested at the Downer Refinery, in Corry, Pennsylvania; where it was giving much satisfaction, producing a heat a powerful and regular as any ever produced from either bituminous or anthracite coal. It must be remembered that this article is produced from what was at first rejected as the debris or useless residuum of petroleum, but it is now coming into the market as one of the most valuable products.”

Petroleum has produced new colors. Says a scientific traveler:

“Among the most favorite colors for silk goods, ribbons, etc., in the market, is a color produced from the residuum of the petroleum and manufactured at the Humbolt refinery, near Plummer, in the Oil Creek region. It is a bright and cerulean blue, or perhaps a shade darker, but still as brilliant, and is called the Humbolt color. The process of manufacturing is kept a profound secret by the discoverers, who are German chemists, and do not speak, if they understand English. No stranger is allowed to enter their works, except by special permission.”

“Greek fire” is a compound of petroleum. One author on the subject says:

“The ‘Greek fire’ of more modern times was probably compounded of petroleum from the Zantean springs. From the time of Zoroaster, the naphtha of Baku has been sent all over Asia for the service of the sacred fire of the Parsees. The liquid streams spontaneously through the surface, and rises wherever a hole is bored. But especially at Balegan, six miles from the capital village, the sides of the mountain stream with black oils, which collect in reservoirs constructed in an unknown ancient time, while not far off a spring of white oil gushes from the foot.”

Petroleum is of great age. It has been two centuries since it was found in Italy. In France, China and Germany oil springs have been known from time immemorial. The American Aborigines used it for medicine, to paint and for religious ceremonies.

•••••

A Queer Incident.–An amusing instance of the value of ready wit and presence of mind occurred during the advance of the Second Corps, near Hatcher’s Run. A young lad in the 14th Connecticut, going with a coffee-pot to get water from the stream, suddenly found himself surrounded by three rebels. With all the fierceness of voice he could muster, he commanded them to throw down their arms and surrender. Supposing that the brave youth had companions near to enforce his command, they complied, when he seized one of their muskets and marched them into camp in great triumph. This story is related in his camp as the capture of three rebels with a coffee-pot.