The Commanding General, Peck, thanked in general orders, Colonel McChesney, the officers, men, and guides, for this bold and successful affair.

December 31.-The following review of the year and situation, was published in the Richmond Examiner of this day:

ed, one missing, and three horses disabled. Lieut. was once competence has become poverty, povWilliam K. Adams, of company L, First North- erty has become penury, penury is lapsing into Carolina volunteers, a gallant and dashing officer, pauperism. Any mechanical occupation is more was killed while making a charge at the head of profitable than the most intellectual profession; his command. the most accomplished scholars in the Confederacy would be glad to barter their services for food and raiment; and in the complete upturning of our social relations, the only happy people are those who have black hearts or black skins. The cry of scarcity resounds through the land, raised by the producers in their greed for gain, reechoed by consumers in their premature dread of starvation and nakedness. We are all in the dark, and men are more or less cowards in the dark. We do not know what our resources are, and no one can tell us whether we shall have a pound of beef to eat at the end of 1864, or a square inch of leather to patch the last shoe in the Confederacy. Unreasoning confidence has been succeeded by depression as unreasoning, and the Yankees are congratulating themselves on the result, which they hawk about as the 'beginning of the end.'

"To-day closes the gloomiest year of our struggle. No sanguine hope of intervention buoys up the spirits of the confederate public as at the end of 1861. No brilliant victory like that of Fredericksburgh encourages us to look forward to a speedy and successful termination of the war, as in the last weeks of 1862. Meade has been foiled, and Longstreet has had a partial success in Tennessee; but Meade's advance was hardly meant in earnest, and Bean's Station is a poor set-off to the loss of the gallant men who fell in the murderous assault on Knoxville. Another daring "Theologians will tell us that the disasters of Yankee raid has been carried out with compara- the closing year are the punishment of our sins. tive impunity to the invaders, and timorous cap- This is true enough; but a cheap penitence will italists may well pause before they nibble at eli- not save us from the evil consequences. There gible investments in real estate situated far in is no forgiveness for political sins, and the rethe interior. That interior has been fearfully sults will as certainly follow as if there had been narrowed by the Federal march through Ten- no repentance. As all sins are, in a higher sense, nessee, and owing to the deficiencies of our cav- intellectual blunders, we must strain every fibre alry service, Lincoln's squadrons of horse threat- of the brain and every sinew of the will if we en to be as universal a terror, as pervasive a nui- wish to repair the mischief which our folly and sance, as his squadrons of gun-boats were some our corruption have wrought. The universal months since. The advantages gained at Chancel- recognition of this imperative duty is a more cerlorsville and Chickamauga have had heavy coun- tain earnest of our success than the high spirits terpoises. The one victory led to the fall of Jack-of our men in the field, or the indomitable patrison and the deposition of Hooker, the other led first to nothing and then to the indelible disgrace of Lookout Mountain. The Confederacy has been cut in twain along the line of the Mississippi, and our enemies are steadily pushing forward their plans for bisecting the eastern moiety. No wonder, then, that the annual advent of the reign of mud is hailed by all classes with a sense of relief -by those who think and feel aright, as a pre-something to injure the credit of confederate secious season to prepare for trying another fall with our potent adversary.

otism of our women at home, from which newspaper correspondents derive so much comfort. The incompetence and unfaithfulness of government officials have had much to do with the present sad state of affairs, but the responsibility does not end there; the guilt does not rest there alone. Every man who has suffered himself to be tainted with the scab of speculation has done

curities; every man who has withheld any necessary of life has done his worst to ruin the "Meanwhile the financial chaos is becoming country; every one, man or woman, who has wilder and wilder. Hoarders keep a more reso- yielded to the solicitations of vanity or appetite, lute grasp than ever on the necessaries of life. and refused to submit to any privation, however Non-producers, who are at the same time non-slight, which an expenditure, however great, speculators, are suffering more and more. What could prevent, has contributed to the general de

spect than the annus mirabilis of blunders which we now consign to the dead past."-MAJOR-GENERAL BUTLER, from his headquarters at Fortress Monroe, Va., issued a general order, dismissing several officers of his command for intoxication.

moralization. It may be said that, with the pre-next year would furnish a more agreeable retrosent plethora of paper money, such virtue as we demand is not to be expected of any people made up of merely human beings. But some such virtue is necessary for any people whose duty it has become to wage such a contest as ours; and if the virtue is not spontaneous, it must be engrafted by the painful process through which we are now passing. We cannot go through this fiery furnace without the smell of fire on our garments. We can no more avoid the loss of property than we can the shedding of blood. There is no family in the Confederacy that has not to mourn the fall of some member or some

-THE rebel steamer Grey Jacket, while attempting to run out of Mobile Bay, was captured by the Union gunboat Kennebec. - PRESIDENT LINCOLN approved the "additional instructions to the tax commissioners, for the district of South-Carolina, in relation to the disposition of lands."

-JEFFERSON DAVIS having approved the folconnection, and there is no family in the Confed-lowing rule, by virtue of authority vested in eracy which ought to expect to escape scathless him by the confederate Congress, the rebel Secin estate. The attempt is as useless, in most retary of State gave notice thereof: cases, as it is ignoble in all. A few, and but few, in comparison with the whole number, may come out richer than when they went in; but even they must make up their minds to sacrifice a part, and a large part, in order to preserve the

whole. The saying of the stoic philosopher,

'You can't have something for nothing,' though it sounds like a truism, in fact, conveys a moral lesson of great significance. Men must pay for privileges. If they do not pay voluntarily, their neighbors will make them pay, and that heavily. Had those who employed substitutes to take their places in the army refrained as a class from speculation and extortion, they would not now be lamenting the prospect of a speedy furtherance to the camp of instruction. However just their cause, the manner in which too many of them abused the immunity acquired by money has deprived them of all active sympathy.

"We all have a heavy score to pay, and we know it. This may depress us, but our enemies need not be jubilant at our depression, for we are determined to meet our liabilities. Whatever number of men, or whatever amount of money shall be really wanting will be forthcoming. Whatever economy the straightening of our resources may require, we shall learn to exercise. We could only wish that Congress was not in such a feverish mood, and that the government would do something toward the establishment of a statistical bureau, or some other agency, by which we could approximately ascertain what we have to contribute, and to what extent we must husband our resources. Wise, cool, decided, prompt action would put us in good condition for the spring campaign of 1864, and the close of

"No passport will be issued from the department of state, during the pending war, to any male citizen, unless the applicant produce, and file in the department, a certificate, from the proper military authorities, that he is not liable to duty in the army.”

JANUARY 1, 1864.

-A DETACHMENT of seventy-five men, composed of a proportionate number from each of four companies constituting Major Henry A. Cole's Maryland cavalry battalion, on a scout in the vicinity of Harper's Ferry, Maryland, were suddenly encountered, at a point near Rectortown, by a force of rebel cavalry, belonging to the brigade under the command of General Rosser. After fighting gallantly and until fifty-seven out of their number (seventy-five) were either killed or captured, the remaining eighteen made their way in safety to camp. Several of those who escaped found their feet frozen when they reached camp.

-COLONEL WILLIAM S. HAWKINS, of the "Hawkins Scouts," a leader in the scouting service of the rebel forces under General Bragg, was captured at the house of a Mr. Mayberry, on Lick Creek, Kentucky, by Sergeant Brewer, of Major Breathitt's battalion of Kentucky cavalry.—Ar Memphis, Tennessee, the thermometer stood at ten degrees below zero, and at Cairo, Illinois, at sixteen degrees below. A number of soldiers were frozen to death at Island No. 10.-THE Richmond Whig, in an article setting forth the condition of military and naval affairs at the South, concluded its remarks as follows: "Thus

we find we have an army poorly clad, scantily fed, indifferently equipped, badly mounted, with insufficient trains, and with barely enough ammunition. To remedy the evil, we are going to double, and if possible, quadruple the number of men and horses, take away every efficient master from the agricultural districts, and leave the laborers, on whom both men and horses depend for existence, a prey to natural idleness, and with every inducement to revolt. If this be not judicial madness, the history of desperate measures adopted by feeble and affrighted councils does not present an example.”

—ANDREW J. HAMILTON, Military Governor of Texas, issued an able address to the citizens of that State, setting forth their duties to themselves and their government.

January 4.-General Gregg's cavalry division, under the command of Colonel Taylor, of the First Pennsylvania regiment, left the headquarters of the army of the Potomac, on the first instant, for the purpose of making a reconnoissance to Front Royal, taking on their horses three days' rations and forage. Owing to the condition of the roads the artillery attached to the division could proceed no farther than Warrenton. The command returned to-day, having travelled ninety miles during the three days' absence, and encountered severe deprivations in consequence of the intensely cold weather; but no enemy was discovered. Shenandoah River, no attempt was made to Owing to the depth of the

cross it.

-A FIGHT occurred near Fort Sumner, New Mexico, in which the Union troops belonging to General Carlton's command, routed the Navijo Indians, killing forty and wounding twenty-five. -FORTY Sioux Indians surrendered themselves to the Union forces, at Pembina, Dacotah Terri

navy-yard at Brooklyn, New-York, in the flagship Hartford to assume command of the East Gulf squadron.-JOINT resolutions of thanks to General Robert E. Lee and the officers and soldiers under his command, by the rebel Congress.

January 3.-A large force of rebels, under General Sam Jones, made a descent upon a small body of Union troops stationed near Jonesville, Virginia, belonging to an Illinois regiment, commanded by Major Beers, and eighteen men of tory.-REAR-ADMIRAL FARRAGUT sailed from the Neill's Ohio battery. A desperate resistance was made, continuing from seven A.M. to three P.M., when the Nationals surrendered. The rebels numbered for ousan men. They lost four killed and twe unded. —ADMIRAL LEE, in the United States gunboat Fah Kee, entered Lockwood's, Folly Inlet, about ten miles to the south of Wilmington, North-Carolina, hoisted out his boats, and examined the blockade-running steamer Bendigo, which was run ashore by the captain a week previous, to prevent her being captured by the blockaders. While making these examinations, the enemy's sharp shooters appeared and opened fire upon the boats' crews, which was returned by the Fah

Kee's guns, when a rebel battery opened fire and the boats returned to the ship.

January 5.-The Fourth Virginia rebel cavalry surprised an infantry picket belonging to the army of the Potomac, at a point near Eldorado, Culpeper County, Virginia, and captured three of their number.

January 6.-Major General Foster, from his order: "All able-bodied colored men, between headquarters at Knoxville, issued the following the ages of eighteen and forty-five, within our lines, except those employed in the several staff departments, officers' servants, and those servants of loyal citizens who prefer remaining with The Fah Kee continued her fire until the Ben- their masters, will be sent forthwith to Knoxdigo was well-riddled, but her battery was light, ville, Loudon, or Kingston, Tennessee, to be enand in consequence of her draft of water and the rolled under the direction of Brigadier-General shoals inside, had to be at long-range, and conse-Davis Tillson, Chief of Artillery, with a view to quently not as destructive as was desired. Night coming on, the Admiral returned to the fleet.Official Report.

-THE British ship Silvanus, while attempting to run the blockade at Doboy Sound, Georgia, was chased ashore by the National gunboat Huron.-TWENTY shells loaded with Greek fire, were thrown into the city of Charleston, South-Carolina, causing a considerable conflagration.

the formation of a regiment of artillery, to be composed of troops of African descent."

-By orders from General Foster, BrigadierGeneral O. B. Wilcox was assigned to the command of the district of Clinch, including the region between the Cumberland and Clinch Mountains, and extending from Big Creek Gap on the west, to the eastern line of the State of Tennessee, on the east.