A SOLDIER in the field sends the following appeal to the boys to volunteer: I've left my home and all my friends, But now old Jeff is doomed to fall, ATLANTA, GA., October 30, 1862.-Our sanctum was honored yesterday with the presence of Colonel Durant da Ponte, the accomplished chief editor, in past days, of that able journal, the New-Orleans Delta, but who is now on the military staff of General Magruder, and en route for that General's command in Texas and NewMexico. When New-Orleans fell, Col. da Ponte abandoned the pen for the sword, and has done gallant service for the South with the latter, as he did with the former, when at the head of that popular journal.—At lanta Intelligencer. EXECUTIONS BY THE REBELS.-The Rebel Banner, of the twenty-seventh December, 1862, has the following in a letter from Murfreesboro : 'Yesterday the sentences of court-martial were executed upon several persons in the vicinity of this place. Gray, resident of this county, was hung as a spy in presence of an immense throng of soldiers and citizens. Proof of guilt was very comprehensive and conclusive. He had been for several months acting in concert with the enemy, and giving them aid and comfort. The gallows was erected near the railroad dépôt, whither at noon the condemned man was conveyed. He appeared quite unconcerned, and his forbidding features did not display any particular interest in the dread tragedy about to be enacted. Just after the noose had been adjusted about the prisoner's neck, and as Captain Peters was about reading the sentence, Gray leaped from the platform, thus launching himself into eternity. He struggled severely for several minutes, and then expired. "At the same hour, amidst a drenching rain-storm, Asa Lewis, member of Captain Page's company, Sixth Kentucky regiment, was shot by a file of men. He was executed upon a charge of desertion, which was fully proven against him. The scene was one of great impressiveness and solemnity. The several regiments of Hanson's brigade were drawn up in a hollow A CURIOUS WILL.-John A. Tainter, who died in Hartford, Ct., left all his property, about one million square, while Generals Breckinridge and Hanson, with dollars, to his wife and two daughters. In his will he The prisoner was conveyed from jail to the brigade their staffs, were present to witness the execution. forbids either of his daughters to marry a foreigner, or a native of a Southern or slaveholding State, under pen-file of ten men, commanded by Major Morse and Lieut. drill-ground on an open wagon, under the escort of a alty of forfeiting her interest in the property.-New- George B. Brumley. Lewis's hands were tied behind York Tribune, January 8. him, a few words were said to him by Generals Breckinridge and Hanson, the word fire was given, and all The unfortunate man conducted himself was over. with great coolness and composure. He was said to have been a brave soldier, and distinguished himself at the battle of Shiloh. THE BOYS OF THE REBEL ARMY.-A remarkable instance of gallantry and endurance, on the part of a youth of fifteen years, has been brought to our notice, on the authority of his captain. His name is Francis Huger Rutledge Gould, a protégé of the Right Rev. Bishop Rutledge, of Florida, and a private in company B, Captain Latt. Phillips, Third Florida regiment. On the eighth ult., he fought barefooted through the battle of Perryville, and made himself conspicuous by his daring conduct, winning from his captain the highest encomiums for his gallantry. Charleston Courier, November 14. AMONG the peculiarities of the secession rebellion is the fact that on the thirty-first of December, 1862, Lieutenant-Col. Garesche was killed at Murfreesboro, and on the twenty-ninth of December, 1862, Major Garesche was killed at Vicksburgh. Thus at different points, nearly a thousand miles apart, the two brothers have lost their lives within two days of each other, both having fallen in support of the Union. "A soldier of the Twenty-fourth Tennessee regi. ment, sentenced to death, was led to the execution ground; but just as the sentence was about being executed, a courier arrived, bringing a reprieve from General Bragg. "In one of the Alabama regiments, a soldier was executed for desertion." January 1, 1863.-At Port Royal there is a negro under Governor Saxton's tuition, one hundred and five years old, who has just learned his letters. He belonged at first to a Governor of South-Carolina, and was presented by him, when sixteen years old, to General Nathaniel Greene, of Revolution memory, and was his personal servant as long as he (the General) lived. IN THE SEPULCHRE. O Keeper of the Sacred Key, Look down upon the world once more and tell us what the end will be. GENERAL LYON'S MEMORY.-A soldier of Gen. Herron's division, writes from Springfield, Mo., as follows: "General Lyon's memory is cherished by the soldiers here as something holy. The Union men think that no man ever lived like him. The Third division visited the battle-field of Wilson's Creek on Thanksgiving Day, and each man placed a stone on the spot where Lyon fell, so that there now stands a monument some ten feet high, built by eight thousand soldiers, to point out to the visitor of this classic ground the place where Is turned to verdure, and the land is now one mighty the hero died."-Maquoketa Excelsior, January 13. Three cold, bright moons have filled and wheeled, The lifeless Figure on the shield, battle-field. And the twin brothers that we said Had clashed above the fallen head, Heedless of all on which they tread, Thus saith the Keeper of the Key, And the Great Seal of Destiny, Whose eye is the blue canopy, Now crimson with each other's blood the vernal dra- And casts the pall of his great darkness over all the And all, according to their might, unsheathe the sword Alas! there ne'er was time in human story, and choose their side. I see the champion sword-strokes flash, I see a brother stoop to loose his foeman-brother's bloody sash. I hear the curses and the thanks, I see the mad charge on the flanks The rents-the gaps-the broken ranks And see the vanquished driven headlong down the river's bridgeless banks. I see the death-gripe on the plain, The grappling monsters on the main, I see the thousands that are slain, When fighting, killing, were not going on! Conquest, plunder, mastery, and "glory," By these the race has ever been undone. And Christian men, with age and learning hoary, Have found a conscience even to smile upon The "pride, pomp, and circumstance" of war(The Juggernaut, who rolls his crunching car!) And history is mostly a disastrous tale Of marches, battles, and that sort of thing; Sometimes upon a large, and then a smaller scale, As prosers tell us, or as poets sing. It seems that mankind at no time can fail Upon themselves war's miseries to bring. Doubtless the rulers are to blame; but then, What could the rulers do without the men? And all the speechless suffering and agony of heart Suppose no soldier e'er could be enlisted, and brain. I see the torn and mangled corpse, The dead and dying heaped in scores, The heedless rider by his horse From worthier motive-or to fight for hire? Suppose all men were Christians, and existed To do just what the Christian rules require? Then our Constitution had not been resisted By Northern State laws! Then no frantic ire Had e'er inflamed the Southern men, to tear The wounded captives bayoneted through and through From Sumter's walls our banner floating there. without remorse. I see the dark and bloody spots The crowded rooms and crowded cots The bleaching bones, the battle-blots For what has brought our land to this condition So feeble now, and late so hale and hearty? Not Christianity, but sinful superstition, Inspiring a politico-religious party And write on many a nameless grave a legend of for- Yclept Republican, but really Abolition! get-me-nots. I see the assassin crouch and fire I see his victim fall-expire I see the victor creeping nigher, To strip the dead-he turns the head-the face !the son beholds his sire! I hear the dying sufferer cry, With his crushed face turned to the sky, To the foul pool, and bow his head into its bloody slime and die. And in the low sun's blood-shot raysPortentous of the coming days I see the oceans blush and blaze, When Garrison, its founder, took his start, he Scarce could have hoped his English Yankee notion So soon would end in war's insane commotion. But he had chosen well his field of labor! Yes-well he chose! And well the people there And the emergent continent between them wrapt in Brought step by step the Union to declare They did all this; and sadly they defamed Their country in the ears of all mankind "Barbarians" were their countrymen, who claimed The rights the Constitution had defined. Resistance to the statutes was proclaimed The pious duty of a people so refined! And all this madness, tending or intended, To rend the Union-as we've seen it rended. But-Davis, Yancey, Keitt, and Beauregard, Were match to your immeasurable sin What demon could possess you to abandon The Union-and your rights as Union men? A monstrous crime, and worse—a monstrous blunder! 'Twas Talleyrand, French Secretary, said A blunder's worse than crime;-but never Hath any one in earthly annals read Of blunder like your efforts to dissever I know that Milton undertakes to prove, Enlisted armies, and had soldiers training, Against angelic hosts, in rude campaigning! So says the poet; and to human level, He thus brings down the conduct of the devil. But sacred chronicle has nothing said Of Lucifer behaving in this way. Some shabby tricks it seems that he had played, And so in Heaven could no longer stay. But war, I'm satisfied, he never made, As Milton tells us. There was no display Of spears and shields and other like "material," And loud explosions from the guns ethereal. No! Milton's epic's very far from true- And do not paint him blacker than he is. It was in fact secession, and no less, All quietly and peaceably out-acted. The devil, jealous, was in some distress, Because his plottings had been counteracted; The rule of others only would oppress, He said; and so to rule, himself, exacted; But failing, took his leave, and sundry minionsDropping headlong into his own dominions. And this was all. So Milton's solemn song For Lucifer is guiltless of the wrong Of armed rebellion! This is something worse Than even he enacted, when on pinions strong The gulf to Erebus he did traverse. No, no-he's bad enough; but men defame him, When for the crime of rebel war they blame him! But 'twas a losing business; and the devil Of "recognized" confederacy, as they tell. And so with you and yours. Oh! had you stood By bringing your supplies from some far nation, And not from mad New-England, you'd have made Her bigotry surrender to the laws of trade. She would have given up her abolition For trade and profit. We have seen her scout In larger markets-they shall not go out! Some fifty years ago, New-England thought She boasts, New-England does, of her capacity In close connection, when they speak her name,) She makes the guns, the powder, clothing, shoes, In arms-preparing them for others' deeds. And so, while honest Western men are fighting, She's in the contract part of war delighting. She loveth war, while to her mill is brought The profitable grist! Her pockets linedFor blood and misery she careth not, So they to other people are confined. Let others suffer as they will, 'tis naught To her and hers. And so the public mind She poisons and embitters with infusion Of negro madness, to prolong confusion. In several places there are "contrabands" The blessings brought on him, by revolution. And honest white men, in our own and other lands, Lament his losses, when we lost the Constitution. Adown in Cairo there are sorry sightsNegroes more wretched, even, than poor whites! The "old plantation!" How doth Cuffee mourn For home, and "massa;" and the jolly days, When he was "fat and saucy," and could turn His back on want! He sang his simple laysMinstrel of nature! nor did he ever learn That he was all "down-trodden." In the maze Of negro dance, with Dinah vis-a-vis, What monarch ever happier than he? For Africa's barbarians, once brought In middle passages o'er ocean's tide, Have left descendants, who have haply caught Some sparks of Christianity, beside A race superior. And you would have sought In vain, through all of earth's dominions wide, For laboring people happier than they, While meddling disturbers could be kept away. It could not last. New-England's pseudo saints For war, they say, is better than "aggression" Of "slavery" upon the Northern rights! And Pharisees in pulpit, make profession Of Christian gifts-applauding deadly fights! O'er battle-fields they gloat! the sad procession Of killed and mangled are refreshing sights! For vacant hearth-stones, ruin, desolation, They say, are tokens of the land's salvation! But what aggression ever yet was made The soil of any State, for spoil or fight? A single Northern heart e'er wound or blight? (I mean of course, before we had secessionThe remedy, ill chosen, for the North's aggression.) "Oh! yes!" we're told, "they labored to expand The country's bounds! They years ago did vex us With Louisiana, (which turned out a grand Affair enough;) then Florida, then Texas Against the Northern protest; did perplex us Thus we have briefly told "what was the matter;" Thus the "aggression" of the South we see ! But more than this, they even sought to scatter Themselves o'er these new lands, as well as we; And equal rights they claimed, while we did flatter Ourselves we were superiors to be! And this was all; no right they e'er denied us, Except, that when we threatened, they defied us. They did what born Americans must do, When wronged; they swore to seek redress! They to the Union had been firm and trueMade for their safety and their happiness; They clung to rights by Constitution due To free white men, who only them possess. But they did err in choice of modes for righting All wrongs; they chose secession, and then fighting! But view the case reversed. Suppose the North Denied the rights, essential to existence; Suppose her people styled "barbarians," and so forth; Their "chattels" stolen, with insane persistence? Suppose the Constitution of so little worth, That plain provisions met with mad resistance? How long would Yankees bear such imposition? She's gloating now o'er distant desolation, She madly fanned the fires that glow in war, She kills the hen that laid her golden eggs! Where then her trade? If Western labor begs Like boy on bladder, sporting on a river, She's floating now, all buoyant on the stream; But war's fat contracts cannot last forever, And when they're over, ended is her dream! Her bladders all collapsed-how can she ever Her prestige and prosperity redeem? Domestic trade let down-then foreign trade a-courting, She'll find that paper prices don't permit exporting! Of honesty she'll then give some example In honest hearty curses on herself, Pompeii sported-eating, drinking, making love, in The neatest little loaves of four ace flour; Laden darkness came volcanic shower! And so the world (except of ashes) ended For proud old Pompeii and all her people. With fate--when ashes buried even the steeple. All hail, New-England! We have heard your cry A grand eruption may come, by and by, Of Western passion, and it may not fail Those "cities of the plain" went down in sorrow, A hint to mend your ways, and better grow? THE HOUR AND THE MAN. From the deep heart of all this land is sounding, Like the weird voice of Fate, the tramp of men; And now, where serried ranks are fast emerging, And slope, and field, and plain, and stream, are glistening With points of steel and banners flaunting high; And the awed world stands looking on and listening! 'Midst it all, a cry Steals up! in the beginning like a murmur On the broad page that bears the varied record Truth and right were lost. But cool, calm, cautious, and determined action, When comes the passing hour that's big with fate, Fixes its impress on the individual, Exalts, expands, and magnifies the state. From out the dusk of far receding centuries, One clear, prophetic voice of warning calls'Tis this: that in the hour of trust and trial, He who falters falls! Oh! hearken to it, thou to-day, who holdest We wait, thy people, patient but expectant; OUR HEROES. Ah! no, they have not passed away, The glorious men of old, Of lofty deeds, whose souls were cast O patriot names! Brighter for such Hear ye their call? Up! Save this Land! They come! they come! O waiting souls! Their hearts are leal, their swords are true, Thank God, my country, for the brave, Their noblest thoughts are given to thee, They fight and bleed and die On hill-side, plain, and sea, That the old flag cleansed from every stain BRUNSWICK, ME., January 10, 1863. S. R. C. |