Sudden flashed on them a sheet of flame
From hidden fence and from ambuscade;
A moment more-(they say this is fame)-
A thousand dead men on the grass were laid.

Fifteen thousand in wounded and killed,

At least, is "our loss," the newspapers say. This loss to our army must surely be filled Against another great battle-day.

"Our loss!" Whose loss? Let demagogues say That the Cabinet, President, all are in wrong. What do the orphans and widows pray?

What is the burden of their sad song?

'Tis their loss! But the tears in their weeping eyes
Hide Cabinet, President, Generals-all;
And they only can see a cold form that lies
On the hillside slope, by that fatal wall.

They cannot discriminate men or means

They only demand that this blundering cease. In their frenzied grief they would end such scenes, Though that end be-even with traitors-peace.

Is thy face from thy people turned, O God?

Is thy arm for the Nation no longer strong?

We cry from our homes-the dead cry from the sod-
How long, O our righteous God! how long?
NEW-YORK, December 17, 1862.

THE EAGLE OF CORINTH.*

Did you hear of the fight at Corinth,
How we whipped out Price and Van Dorn?
Ah! that day we earned our rations-
(Our cause was God's and the Nation's,
Or we'd have come out forlorn !)
A long and a terrible day!
And, at last, when night grew gray,
By the hundred, there they lay,
(Heavy sleepers, you'd say)-

That wouldn't wake on the morn.

Our staff was bare of a flag,
We didn't carry a rag

In those brave marching days-
Ah! no-but a finer thing!
With never a cord or string,
An Eagle, of ruffled wing,

And an eye of awful gaze!

The grape it rattled like hail,
The Minies were dropping like rain,
The first of a thunder-shower-

The wads were blowing like chaff,
(There was pounding, like floor and flail,
All the front of our line!)
So we stood it, hour after hour-
But our eagle, he felt fine!

"Twould have made you cheer and laugh,

"The finest thing I ever saw was a live American eagle, carried by the Eighth Iowa, in the place of a flag. It would fly off over the enemy during the hottest of the fight, then would return and seat himself upon his pole, clap his pinions, shake his head and start again. Many and hearty were the cheers that arose from our lines as the old fellow would sail around, first to the right, then to the left, and always return to his post, regardless of the storm of leaden hail that was around him. Something seemed to tell us that that battle was to result in our favor, and when the order was given to charge, every man went at them with fixed bayonets, and the enemy scattered in all directions, leaving us in possession of the battle-field."-Letter from Chester D. Howe, Co. E, Twelfth Illinois Volunteers.

To see, through that iron gale,
How the Old Fellow'd swoop and sail
Above the racket and roar-
To right and to left he'd soar,
But ever came back, without fail,
And perched on his standard-staff.

All that day, I tell you true,

They had pressed us, steady and fair,
Till we fought in street and square-
(The affair, you might think, looked blue,)
But we knew we had them there!
Our works and batteries were few,
Every gun, they'd have sworn, they knew-
But, you see, there was one or two
We had fixed for them, unaware.

They reckon they've got us now!

For the next half-hour twill be warm-
Ay, ay, look yonder !—I vow,

If they weren't secesh, how I'd love them!
Only see how grandly they form,
(Our eagle whirling above them,)

To take Robinette by storm!
They're timing!-it can't be long-
Now for the nub of the fight!

(You may guess that we held our breath,)
By the Lord, 'tis a splendid sight!
A column two thousand strong
Marching square to the death!

On they came, in solid column,
For once, no whooping nor yell-
(Ah! I dare say they felt solemn.)
Front and flank-grape and shell

Our batteries pounded away!
And the Minies hummed to remind 'em
They had started on no child's play!
Steady they kept a-going,

But a grim wake settled behind 'em-
From the edge of the abattis,

(Where our dead and dying lay
Under fence and fallen tree,)

Up to Robinette, all the way
The dreadful swath kept growing!
'Twas butternut, flecked with gray.

Now for it, at Robinette!
Muzzle to muzzle we met-
(Not a breath of bluster or brag,

Not a lisp for quarter or favor)-
Three times, there, by Robinette,
With a rush, their feet they set
On the logs of our parapet,

And waved their bit of a flag-
What could be finer or braver!
But our cross-fire stunned them in flank,
They melted, rank after rank-
(O'er them, with terrible poise,

Our Bird did circle and wheel!)
Their whole line began to waver-
Now for the bayonet, boys!
On them with the cold steel!

Ah! well-you know how it endedWe did for them, there and then, But their pluck, throughout, was splendid. (As I said before, I could love them!)

They stood, to the last, like menOnly a handful of them

Found the way back again.

Red as blood, o'er the town,
The angry sun went down,

Firing flag-staff and vane-
And our eagle-as for him,
There, all ruffled and grim,

He sat, o'erlooking the slain !

Next morning, you'd have wondered

How we had to drive the spade! There, in great trenches and holes, (Ah! God rest their poor souls!) We piled some fifteen hundred,

Where that last charge was made!

Sad enough, I must say.

No mother to mourn and search,
No priest to bless or to pray-
We buried them where they lay,

Without a rite of the church-
But our eagle, all that day,

Stood solemn and still on his perch.

'Tis many a stormy day

Since, out of the cold, bleak North,
Our Great War Eagle sailed forth
To swoop o'er battle and fray.
Many and many a day

O'er charge and storm hath he wheeled-
Foray and foughten-field—

Tramp, and volley, and rattle!-
Over crimson trench and turf,
Over climbing clouds of surf,
Through tempest and cannon-rack,
Have his terrible pinions whirled-
(A thousand fields of battle!
A million leagues of foam !)
But our Bird shall yet come back,

He shall soar to his eyrie-home-
And his thunderous wings be furled,
In the gaze of a gladdened world,
On the Nation's loftiest Dome.

December, 1862.

A NATIONAL HYMN.

BY PARK BENJAMIN.

Н. Н. В.

Great God! to whom our nation's woes,
Our dire distress, our angry foes,
In all their awful gloom are known,
We bow to thee and thee alone.

We pray thee mitigate this strife,
Attended by such waste of life,
Such wounds and anguish, groans and tears,
That fill our inmost hearts with fears.

Oh! darkly now the tempest rolls,
Wide o'er our desolated souls;
Yet, beaten downward to the dust,
In thy forgiveness still we trust.

We trust to thy protecting power
In this, our country's saddest hour,
And pray that thou wilt spread thy shield
Above us in the camp and field.

O God of battles! let thy might
Protect our armies in the fight-
Till they shall win the victory,
And set the hapless bondmen free.

Till, guided by thy glorious hand,
Those armies reünite the land,
And North and South alike shall raise
To God their peaceful hymns of praise.

"I FIGHTS MIT SIGEL!"

BY GRANT P. ROBINSON.

I met him again, he was trudging along,
His knapsack with chickens was swelling:
He'd "Blenkered" these dainties, and thought it no
wrong

From some secessionist's dwelling.
"What regiment's yours? and under whose flag

Do you fight?" said I, touching his shoulder; Turning slowly around he smilingly said, For the thought made him stronger and bolder: "I fights mit Sigel!"

The next time I saw him his knapsack was gone,
His cap and canteen were missing,

Shell, shrapnel, and grape, and the swift rifle-ball
Around him and o'er him were hissing.
How are you, my friend, and where have you becu,
And for what and for whom are you fighting?
He said, as a shell from the enemy's gun
Sent his arm and his musket a
"I fights mit Sigel !"

kiting:"

TROPHIES OF THE FIELD OF ANTIETAM.

MESSRS. EDITORS: During a visit to the headquarters of the army of the Potomac at Sharpsburgh, a few days after the great battle of Antietam, in company with several gentlemen from Philadelphia, I was favored with a personal interview with Gen. McClellan, during which our attention, while in his tent, was drawn to a large number of colors taken from the rebels in the battles of South-Mountain, Antietam, and Shepherdstown Bluffs. As they possessed great interest to our party, Gen. McClellan very kindly gave us a great deal of information in regard to them, and by his permission I made the list and descriptions of them herewith appended. As will be seen by a reference to the General's official report of the battles, this list comprises less than one half of the colors captured, the whole number being thirty-nine. The list embraces all, however, which at the time of our visit had been received at the headquarters, and though only partial, may, nevertheless, possess an interest for your readers.

1. We were first shown the battle-flag of the rebels, which Gen. McClellan informed us had been generally adopted by them, in lieu of the regular confederate or national rebel flag, which was the only one carried in the earlier periods of the war. This flag was about four feet square, red ground, with blue stripes, about four inches wide, running diagonally across, or from corner to corner. On these stripes are twelve white stars, representing the twelve States claimed by the rebels as belonging to their confederacy. It was very badly torn and blood-stained. From a written paper sewed on it, I learned that it had been the battle-flag of the Eleventh Alabama regiment, captured by the Fifty-seventh New-York volunteers, Richardson's division, Sumner's corps, at the battle of " Antietam," September seventeenth, 1862.

2. A regular confederate flag, with the stars and bars. I could not learn the history of this flag, from what regiment captured, nor by whom?

3. Another battle-flag, similar in all respects to No. 1. It was very much torn and very bloody. The following history of its capture was pinned to it:

"HEADQUARTERS DOUBLEDAY'S DIVISION,
TWELFTH ARMY CORPS.

"This flag was captured by private Isaac Thomas, company G, Twentieth regiment N.Y.S.M., September seventeenth, 1862, at the battle of Antietam.' Thomas shot the rebel color-bearer, then ran forward and brought off the colors. THEO. R. GATES, Lieutenant-Colonel Commanding."

4. Another battle-flag, similar to the last. On the upper edge of this flag "Williamsburgh" is painted in large letters, and "Seven Pines" on the lower edge. It was captured at the battle of "Antietam," September seventeenth, 1862, by the Seventh New-York volunteers, Caldwell's brigade, Richardson's division.

5. Another battle-flag captured at "Antietam," similar to No. 4, with the words "Seven Pines," in large letters on the lower edge.

6. A large and very splendid silk flag, with the staff shot in two in the middle. This flag is composed of silk of three colors, and when new must have been a very superb one. The field is of deep blue, with a single large straw-colored star in the centre. The bars are of straw color and delicate purple. On the field at the top is inscribed "Seven Pines," on the yellow bar, "Gaines' Farm" and "Eltham's Landing," and "Malvern Hills" on the purple bar. It is much torn and stained, and is bordered with heavy but tarnished silver fringe. This is evidently a Texan standard. I regret that I could not learn its history.

star.

7. Flag of North-Carolina. Red field with single Above the star is the inscription, "May 20th, 1775," referring to the Mecklenburgh Declaration of Independence; below the star, "May 20th, 1861," referring to the rebel declaration of independence. In other respects it is similar to the regular battle-flag of the confederate States.

8. Battle-flag abandoned by the rebels on the battlefield of "Shepherdstown Bluffs," September 19, 1862, when a portion of Griffin's brigade, of Morell's division, Gen. Fitz-John Porter's Fifth army corps, forded the Potomac and carried the heights by assault. This is a silk flag of large size. Its color originally was pink, but now faded by exposure to the weather. It had the diagonal bars of blue, with the white stars, and is bordered with rich yellow fringe. It must have been very handsome when new.

9. A regular confederate flag, the history of which I did not learn.

10. Regular battle-flag, captured by the Fourth regiment Vermont volunteers, at the battle of "Crampton's Pass," (South-Mountain,) Maryland, on Sunday, September fourteenth, 1862.

11. A flag of different style from any of the preceding ones, composed of two triangular pieces of red and white bunting, without star, bar, or inscription. 12, 13, 14. Three battle-flags, without history. 15. Another battle-flag, differing from those already described, it being bordered with orange-colored fringe. The others were without borders. This flag was captured at the battle of Antietam, September seventeenth, 1862, by the Sixty-first New-York volunteers, Caldwell's brigade, Richardson's division.

16. A battle-flag, captured at Antietam, September seventeenth, 1862, by the Seventeenth regiment NewYork volunteers, Caldwell's brigade, Richardson's division.

17. A magnificent, large, dark-blue silk flag, with handsome centre painted, representing two females, one holding a pod of unripe cotton, and the other a staff and liberty cap in her left hand, and a scroll, on which is inscribed "The Constitution of North-Carolina," in her right hand. Below, "4th Regiment NorthCarolina Volunteers." This flag was captured by the Fifth New-Hampshire volunteers, Colonel E. E. Cross, of Caldwell's brigade, Richardson's division, at "Antietam," September seventeenth, 1862. Color-Corporal George Nettleson, seized the colors and brought them off, although badly wounded. The same regiment shot down the color-bearers of battle-flags of other regiments opposed to them.

18. Another battle-flag, made of two triangular pieces of coarse bunting, with staff surmounted by a pike-head of iron, similar to the head of a John Brown spear or pike.

19. A dirty-looking rebel flag, captured at "Crampton's Pass" (South-Mountain,) September the fourteenth, 1862, from the Sixteenth regiment Virginia, by the Fourth regiment New-Jersey volunteers, Torbert's brigade, Slocum's division, Franklin's corps d'armée. W. B. Hatch, Col. Fourth United States volunteers.

20. A dingy-looking flag of very coarse bunting, captured by the same regiment, at Crampton's Pass, September fourteenth, 1862, by the Fourth New-Jer sey volunteers, from the "Cobb Legion of Georgia."

JEFF DAVIS'S EARLY HISTORY.-For the benefit of those who admire and hurrah for Jeff Davis, we publish the following bit of family history taken from the Nashville Union:

"A trifling little rebel paper in Kentucky professes to doubt the truth of our statement respecting the origin of Jeff Davis. What we stated is well known to hundreds of our best citizens of Christian and Todd Counties of Kentucky. Jeff Davis's father lived for a number of years in a log cabin situated in what is now the town of Fairview, twelve miles from Hopkinsville, Kentucky. The house is now weather-boarded, and used as a tavern. Old Davis was a man of bad character, a horse-trader, a swindler, and of very low habits. A fine horse was missing on one occasion in the neighborhood, under such suspicious circumstances that he found it safest to leave the country immediately and fly to Mississippi. Jeff Davis is his illegitimate son, born some miles distant from his father's house, and taken home by him when several years of age. These are notorious facts. Some of Davis's relatives still live in that part of Kentucky. We would not

have alluded to this sinister bar on Jeff's escutcheon, were not his friends continually prating about Southern gentility and the low breeding of the Union people. Our own opinion is, that Jeff's birth does him more credit than any portion of his subsequent life." -The New South.

A UNION soldier died at St. Louis of wounds received at Fort Donelson. He was from Iowa, and his funeral was held in the capital of that State. His dying injunction was, that no enemy of his country, secessionist or abolitionist, should be permitted to touch his body.-Chicago Times.

The repugnance of that soldier to abolitionism-his detestation of it is not singular, but is shared in by three fourths of the army. The feeling is increasing in intensity every day.-Ohio Statesman, May 7.

A REBEL'S PARTING WORDS TO THE YANKEES.-The following document, found in one of the dwellings at Yorktown, Va., speaks for itself:

To the Future Yankee Occupants of this Place:

We have retired to the country for a short time to recruit our health. We find that with your two hundred thousand men you are too modest to visit this

place, and we give you an opportunity to satisfy your curiosity with regard to our defences, assuring you that we will call upon you soon.

We hope a few days' residence in a house once occupied by men will induce enough courage in your gallant hearts to enable you to come within at least two miles of white men hereafter. Be sure to have on

hand a supply of "pork'n beans "when we return; also some codfish and "apple sass." When we learn to relish such diet we may become like you-Puritanical, selfish, thieving, God-forgotten, devil-worshipping, devil-belonging, African-loving, blue-bellied Yankees. Advise father Abraham to keep his Scotch cloak on hand, to keep soberer, and your wise Congress to hunt up two thousand five hundred millions of specie to pay the debt you have incurred in winning the contempt of every live man. We have on hand a few tools which we devote to the special duty of loosering the links of your steel shirts. Couldn't you get a few iron-clad men to do your fighting? Are you not horribly afraid that we will shoot you below the shirts? When are you coming to Richmond? Couldn't you go up the river with us? There is one score which we will yet settle with you, to the death. Your fiendlike treatment of old men and helpless women reads you out of the pale of civilized warfare, and if rifles are true and knives keen, we will rid some of you of your beastly inclinations

When you arise as high in the scale of created beings as a Brazilian monkey, we will allow you sometimes to associate with our negroes; but until then Southern soil will be too hot for the sons of the Pilgrims. The only dealing we will have with you is, henceforth, war to the knife. We despise you as heartily as we can whip you easily on any equal field. Most heartily at your service, whenever you offer a fight. J. TRAVISO SCOTT, Company A, Sixth Georgia Volunteers.

-Missouri Democrat, May 10.

A MARCHING RECORD.-A few days since General Halleck ordered General Curtis to detach a portion of the army of the South-west, and send it with all possible despatch to the aid of the Federal forces before Corinth. The order was received by the latter at Bates

ville, Ark., and promptly obeyed. How many men were forwarded it is unnecessary to mention, but the alacrity of their movements is worthy of note.

The march from Batesville to Cape Girardeau, Mo., a distance of two hundred and forty miles, was accomplished in ten days, some of the men being obliged to travel barefoot for the last sixty miles. This gives an average of twenty-four miles per day; and when it is remembered that the regulation day's march is fifteen miles, we can readily accord the honor for rapid locomotion to the soldiers of the South-west. The day before the battle of Pea Ridge, a detachment from army, under Colonel Vandever, marched from Huntsville to Sugar Creek, forty-one miles, with but

Curtis's

two halts of fifteen minutes each.

Few of the soldiers in the armies under McClellan

and Halleck have undergone hardships equal to those incident to a campaign in Missouri and Arkansas. It is a significant fact that there have been proportionately fewer deaths by disease in the armies of the South-west than in those which, month after month, lay dormant along the Potomac and the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.-Chicago Tribune.

"SKEDADDLE."-This word has been supposed to who was at loss for an appropriate term to express his have originated in the fertile brain of some Yankee, idea of the mania of the rebels for retreating before the advance of our armies. The Louisville Journal, however, shows that the word is of Grecian birth, as will be seen by the following extract from an article in that paper:

The primitive of skedaddle is a pure Greek word of great antiquity. It occurs in Homer, Hesiod, Eschylus, Sophocles, Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, and it was used to express in Greek the very idea that we undertake, in using it, to express in English. Homer, in the Iliad,' uses only the aorist eskedasa or skedasa. Thus in Iliad' 19: 171, we have skedason laon, for scattering, dispersing.

"In Prometheus, Eschylus thus uses it (skeda) in making the sun disperse the hoar frost of the morn.' And again Prometheus uses this word in predicting woes upon Jupiter, when he says that a flame more potent than the lightning' shall be invented, which shall (skeda) shiver the ocean-trident, the spear of Neptune.'

"In the Odyssey, we find Homer using skedasis in describing the scattering of the suitors of Penelope when Ulysses should come, and in the twentieth book of the Odyssey we have the same word used for 'the dispersing of the suitors to their houses,' as the result of the return of Ulysses.

"In Thucydides, book iv., 56, we have an account of a garrison at Cotyria and Aphrodisia, which terrified by an attack a (eskedasmenon) scattered crowd.' At the capture of Torene, in Chalcidice, Thucydides describes the result of the rush of Brasidas and his troops toward the highest parts of the town, and among these results the rest of the multitude (eskedannunto) scattered or dispersed in all directions alike.' In this sense skedasis is used by Xenophon in the Anabasis, by Plato in the Timæus, by Apollonius of Rhodes, by Hesiod, and by Sophocles. It is, therefore, a classic word, and is full of expression."

THE following advertisement appears in the Memphis Appeal, of the thirty-first of May. The "despicable monster" referred to is General Butler: