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SKATING ON THE PARK.
RUSHING
into 'busses,
Crushing into cars,
Pushing over ice-packs,
Like a pack of bears; Crinoline on "rockers," Balmorals on a " lark"-
Bless me ! this is pleasant,
Skating on the Park !
Crowds of cozy Bloomers
Gyrate with a grace;
Crowds of " boozy" meerschaums Puff them to their face :
Floods of rosy people,
'Nough to fill an ark-
Janus ! this is jolly,
Skating on the Park !
Shoals of scaly small-fry
Crack their jokes and pates;
Schools of " amphibilia"
Flounder
flat on skates; Pedagraphic "masters,"
Bound to " make their mark,
Jot down their disasters, Short-hand, on the Park.
Now you " cut" an " eagle,"
Now you cut a " spread ;" Now you backward wriggle,
Now you "crack a head;"
Now you're "up" to Mercury,
Now you zero mark
John ! ain't it jolly,
Gymning on the Park?
"Cup of coffee, Mister?" "Mister, take a skate?"
" Ha! my pretty sister !" "Ho!
my cousin Kate !"
Off she shoots, the rocket !
Off fly
I,
the "spark!"
Smack! was
that a pocket-
Paixhan on the Park?
' Venus ! what an ankle !"
" Phoebus ! what a ' cloud!'"
" How my fingers tingle!"
" Smoking's not allow'd!"
"Heigh! you 'cloud compelling-(Mind
whose shins you bark!)
Jove'-ial, happy fellow !"
This
the ladies' Park?"
Jaunty little " jockey"
(Once
it " struck you" dumb!)
Takes your chair, and (cracky!)
Chair 't 'gins to
hum !
Like a top you're whirling-
Seal'd lips do their work;
And so you win your darling,
Skating on the Park.
Floating is't, or flying?
Is't blue sky we're cleaving?
Are we of hasheesh dying?
Are these " stars" of heaven?
What beauty fills the vision? What angel voices ?—Hark!
Are
these " Fields" Elysian? Is this Central Park?
"What a charbig boodlight!"
" Calcinb, Bister Gradt."
" Takidg cold?" "Well, good-dight!"
By ! they're goidg do dadce !"
" What! dot so sood goidg?"
" Take sobe wide add
bark." Ball's
down for o'erflowing,
" Jig's
up" on the Park.
THE UNION VICTORY AT SOMERSET, KENTUCKY.
FULL
details have been received of the
BATTLE
OF SOMERSET,
Kentucky. By the strategy of
GENERAL BUELL, ZOLLICOFFER'S
army was surrounded
by the divisions of
Generals
THOMAS
and SCHOEPFF ;
perceiving which, Zollicoffer made a
desperate attack upon the Union camp on Sunday
morning, January 19. His force was 10,000 strong,
and that of the Union army consisted of five regiments—the Tenth Indiana, the
Ninth Ohio, the Second Minnesota, the Fourth Kentucky, and the
First Tennessee, the last-named not being engaged
in the thickest of the fight. The battle began at four o'clock A.M., and lasted
all day.
GENERAL ZOLLICOFFER
was killed by
COLONEL FRY,
of Kentucky, and his body found in a wagon. The rebels retreated, and were
followed to their intrenchments, which they abandoned during the night. We give,
on the preceding page, a picture of the picket of the Tenth Indiana Regiment
discovering the approach of the rebels; on
pages 88 and 89 a spirited engraving
of the battle; and
on pages 86 and
87
Maps showing the scene of the
conflict.
The Union loss is 39 killed, 127 wounded ; that
of the rebels is 115 killed, 116 wounded, and 45 taken prisoners. Ten
cannon
with their ammunition, 100
four-horse wagons, 1200 horses and mules,
and several boxes of small-arms were captured by
our forces. The rebels crossed the Cumberland River at Oak Springs; and
dispersed in every direction. Our forces have also crossed in pursuit,
General Thomas having secured the steamboat and
barges used by the rebels. General Thomas has
not been heard from since he crossed the river, but
he will probably occupy Monticello, which the rebels
have deserted. The rebel rout was
complete,
but the Southern papers profess to doubt the news
of the affair. Our new Secretary of War has issued the following stirring
General Order in relation to this affair :
WAR DEPARTMENT,
January 22, 1862.
The President, Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, has received information
of a brilliant victory
achieved by the United States forces over a large body of armed traitors
and rebels, at Mill Spring, in the State of Kentucky. He returns
thanks to the gallant officers and soldiers
who won that victory; and when the official reports shall be received,
the military skill and personal valor displayed in battle will be acknowledged
and rewarded in a fitting manner. The courage that encountered and vanquished
the greatly superior numbers of the rebel force, pursued and attacked them in
their intrenchments, and paused not until the enemy was completely routed,
merits and receives commendation. The purpose of this war is to pursue
and destroy a rebellious enemy, and to deliver the country from danger.
Menaced by traitors, alacrity, daring, courageous spirit, and patriotic zeal, on
all occasions and under every circumstance, are expected from the army of the
United States. In the prompt and spirited movements and daring at the
battle of
Mill Spring the nation will realize its hopes ; and the people of the United
States will rejoice to honor every soldier and officer who proves his courage by
charging with the bayonet, and storming intrenchments, or in the blaze of the
enemy's fire. By order of the President.
EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
SCENES AT FORT PICKENS.
WE give on page 85
sketches of the two BOMBARDMENTS OF FORT PICKENS,
furnished by our special artist. The first of these bombardments began on the
22d of November. A heavy firing was kept up, with little damage, only one man in
the fort being killed. But two days after, some
men were handling a shell which had been thrown
from the rebel batteries without exploding. While they were endeavoring to
withdraw the fuse the shell exploded, killing six and wounding several others.
Our artist has depicted this scene. The
second engagement between Fort Pickens and the
rebel batteries opposite took place on New-Year's
Day, 1862. Colonel Brown, commanding at
Fort
Pickens, provoked by the conduct of the rebels at
Pensacola in firing upon our small craft, opened fire upon them. This was
returned. During the day the Navy-yard at Warrington was set on fire by our
shells. Our artist has furnished a view of the conflagration, as it appeared
from the fort. He also gives us views of the Fort and its surroundings
just before and during the last bombardment.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8,
1862.
THE UNION VICTORY
IN KENTUCKY.
BEFORE
this time our readers will have fully informed themselves in regard to the
recent Union victory at Somerset, Kentucky. The plan, the manner, and the
results of that brilliant achievement are already familiar. The stirring General
Order of the new Secretary of War, and the no less stirring chronicles of the
newspaper reports, have allotted to the officers and privates of the Union
regiments engaged in the battle their due meed of praise. The advantages which
this victory gives us in clearing East Kentucky of rebel armies, and opening the
way to the capture of
Bowling Green and an immediate advance into Tennessee are
evident. It remains only for us to consider the direct and indirect effects of
our triumph upon the people of the rebel States.
We have thus far carefully refrained from expressing any over-sanguine hopes of
the speedy issue of the war. So complex are the questions involved, so nice is
the discrimination required, and so many are the haps and chances in the
subjection of this rebellion, that one who sets times and circumstances for the
end of the war, runs great risk of having his predictions falsified by
occurrences the most singular and unexpected. Still, if we may trust at all to
the signs of the times, this victory at Somerset inaugurates the close of the
rebellion, and may be not inappropriately termed " the beginning of the end."
And we suppose it to be so, not from any knowledge of
General McClellan's plans
and the influence this battle may exert upon them, but for reasons more within
our province—and, we think, quite as satisfactory.
In the first place, then, whatever may be the strategical value of our victory,
it certainly begins a more active and decisive period of the campaign. The
rebels attacked us, for almost the first time, at Somerset ; and so determined
are they to hold the fertile though bloody fields of Kentucky that they will
again attack us if we wait for them. So,
nolens volens, we must fight; for treason draws a great deal of its
sustenance from Kentucky and Tennessee, and will not readily surrender these
States. The rebels are in too great straits even to admit of delay. In the
Border States are their greatest forces and their greatest moral strength.
Conquer the Border States, and the rebellion is mortally wounded. Our generals
know this. The rebel generals know this. With enemies thus well informed, and
with both hostile armies so well prepared, neither party has the power to avoid
conflicts except by an absolute surrender of all that is worth fighting for.
Therefore, as neither the Union nor the rebel armies can afford to delay action,
we think that more hard fighting will immediately ensue in Kentucky; and we
believe that fair, hard fighting will soon end this rebellion.
But the moral aspect
of this victory upon the
South is disastrous to the rebel cause. Lately there has been a great deal of
discontent and complaining among the rebels, and it is very easy to see the
uprising of a genuine Union sentiment among the more honest of the traitors.
There seems to have been a growing conviction recently that we are too strong
for them, and that, after all, they had gained nothing by rebelling against a
Government which they themselves had framed, and against laws which they
themselves had made, only to live under a Government and laws which are
oppressive, unjust, and unpopular, and which, indeed, they had no hand nor voice
in forming. We look to this Somerset victory to strengthen and deepen this
conviction, and give it efficacy and direction. The very fact that, at first,
the rebel journals unanimously affect to disbelieve the news of the victory,
will only make its effect the greater when further skepticism is useless and
impossible ; as disappointment is always most painful when hope has been most
high.
From a variety of sources of information, and from our own personal knowledge,
we are led to believe that the strength of this rebellion lies in its
misrepresentations. The people of the South are told that New York is as
desolate as
New Orleans ; that our army is as ill-equipped and provided as their
own ; that our Government is as
tyrannical, unjust, and badly conducted as that of
Jeff Davis : in short,
that we at the North are suffering quite as much as they are, and that really
the only question is one of endurance. The Southern people would be more than
mortals, or less than Americans, if they did not endure as long as possible
while they hold this belief. But let them be once fully undeceived, and clearly
shown their own weakness compared with our strength, and, through the natural
stages of despondency, despair, desperation, and fury against their miserable,
traitorous deluders, the Southern people will be rid forever of this fever of
rebellion.
The Kentucky victory and those which will follow it will accomplish this
undeception. It will be impossible
to conceal
Zollicoffer's death,
impossible to conceal the rout of his army, impossible to conceal the inevitable
results of our victory from the Southern masses; and when once our strength and
our policy are understood rebellion will hesitate—totter—fall!
THE LOUNGER.
WHAT OF THE NIGHT?
THE
end of the rebellion is to be read, perhaps,
more surely in the raving ferocity of the rebel speeches and papers than in any
other way. The frantic devices to "nog" the jealousy and hatred
of the rebel section toward the Government, so that
it may remain as virulent as ever; the amusing pertinacity with which the
Government of the United States is called "
Lincoln," and loyal citizens " Lincolnites ;" the utterly ludicrous statements like that of the excellent Mr.
Maury to Admiral Fitzroy, that
Wilson's Zouaves were furnished each man with a
halter to hang the rebel he might capture to the nearest tree ; or of the
Memphis Avalanche, that Lincoln had emptied his
penitentiaries over the border, and had given every criminal a torch to kindle a
Confederate city;
the hope expressed by the valuable and profound
statesman, Foote, that " Lincoln and his infernal
Cabinet may be brought to the
scaffold for their
atrocious offenses against the Constitution, which
they have perjurously violated;" and the grave
assertion that the war springs from the malignant
jealousy of Freedom toward Slavery—all these signs
point directly to that desperation which precedes
defeat.
The desponding, querulous bitterness of the Richmond Examiner, in criticising
the spectral Government of Jeff Davis, betrays the same aching
and gnawing consciousness of impending disaster. If the blows that are
now doubtless striking by the National troops are uniformly successful,
the spirits of the rebels, now drooping, will be sadly damped.
And yet they will not " give it up so." A people,
like a man, under the exasperation of mingled rage and defeat and
disgrace, will do very wild and wanton things. If there be any considerable
party of strong Union men at the South, the moment
they reveal themselves they will be violently attacked by the ingrained
Secessionists. The furious, daring,
and reckless men of the rebel section will as willingly turn upon their
fellow-citizens and recent
half-sympathizers as upon the Lincolnites. As every man is, in their
estimation, an Abolitionist who does
not think chattel slavery the
perfection of Christianity, so every man who, under
any circumstances and for any reason, is for yielding
to the power of the Government, will be denounced and hunted as a
Lincolnite. There will be a fierce civil war among themselves; and while our
army as it advances will extend the
lines of peace, it can be only an armed peace, as it is in Maryland at
this moment.
Victory is not Peace. For many a month yet the quiet of the rebel section can be
maintained only by the military hand. The great army of the Union will be by no
means immediately disbanded. Having
suppressed rebellion, it will have to protect peace and loyalty. And only
as the great root of rebellion is loosened and destroyed,
and the
Slavery for which the war is waged disappears, will the
permanence of peace be secured. After the revelations of this rebellion, and in
the circumstances of this time,
whoever extenuates or defends Slavery—whatever may be his views of
the true method of riddance—must be held at heart . a traitor. Yes; and
eve if he abstractly thinks
Slavery to be right, after this bloody evidence of its utter inconsonance with
our government and the popular
conviction, he can not labor for its protection or extension without
condemnation as a dangerously impracticable visionary. So long as he talks only,
he will be pitied and contemned. Should he try overtly to help Slavery, he will
be an open traitor.
WORK AND WAGES.
THE immediate excitement about Mr. Morgan's
purchases for the Government has passed ; but the question remains, and
it will, under other names, occur again.
One thing is pretty clear—if Mr. Morgan had not been related to the Secretary of
the Navy we should have heard very little of the matter. And that shows
conclusively how very difficult it is for a public officer to give public
employment and emolument of the kind in question to a relative, without a
suspicion of nepotism that can not fail to provoke sharp comment.
Another thing is equally clear—that a Government in need must ask itself, " How
can I get this work done most
economically ?" That question was asked, and the Secretary answered it,
and the result was that hundreds of
thousands of dollars were saved to the treasury.
" Ah, but Mr. Morgan ought to have done it for nothing ! The country was in
peril, and he speculated in its necessities. It was not generous; it was not
patriotic."
Perhaps not. But the Navy Department wanted vessels, and expected to pay for
them. And it got the most faithful
service, and made its bargains with economy. That its agent was paid, and
largely, is true. But do Governments ever offer the consciousness of virtue as a
commission ? Would their work be well done, or timely done, if they did ? Mr.
Morgan might have done all the work, and have paid his own expenses. Granted.
But was the Government to advertise for such a person if Mr. Morgan declined ?
That gentleman treated the whole
affair as a business transaction,
and dealt honorably by all parties, although profitably by himself. And
it was a business transaction. If he chose to do it as such, and then add entire
renunciation of the profits, it would have been an admirable thing. But that was
an utterly different question. Every Government must expect to pay for work. Mr.
Morgan did the work well, and was paid.
"Yes ; but he was paid too much."
But the record shows that the Government unquestionably saved money through his
services, and 2 1/2 per cent. is not an enormous commission when it saves the
employer thirty or fifty.
If the purchases and contracts of the War Department had been managed as those
of the Navy Department through Mr. Morgan have been, Mr.
Dawes could not have made so scathing a speech. Is it not worth while for
the Government in future always to secure a man of honesty, loyalty, general
ability, special skill and experience, and pay him well for his work, rather
than to reject him because somebody
ought to be found who may be equally qualified, and may be willing to
take his pay in a salary or a groat
rather than a percentage ?
AN ADVANCE AT LAST.
WHILE there has been clamor enough for a forward
movement, there has been one made, and one of great significance, and
that is the advance of the lyceum lecturers upon Washington. In fact, some of
these gentlemen read the accounts of the establishment of our army at
Hilton
Head and Beaufort and
Ship Island, and of the sailing of
Burnside's expedition,
as if it were merely a movement of
the van, while the major-generals and the staff and the lyceum will bring
up the rear.
" In the name of good morals, sound learning, exact science, and the fine arts,"
exclaimed a lecturer, " haven't we
been sufficiently proved ? Have we not for fifteen resolute and heroic
years lain in the cold bed, eaten
the cold apple at night and the tough steak in the morning, drank the
boot-heel coffee and the straw tea, and through slush and sleet and snow and
slime patiently held our way, and shall there be no reward ? After the vigil and
the fasting shall there be no triumphant accolade of knighthood ?
" Of course there shall be. Henceforth the lyceum lecturer, like the bobolink,
shall wend his southward way as winter comes, and sit and sing
upon the orange-bough and the February rose-tree. He shall put a girdle
of summer round his year. In
October he may begin in Boston ; by November he will have left New
England, and be heard twittering in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Christmas shall
find him across the Potomac, and the exact and nimble reporters of the Richmond
Examiner catching his notes as they fall. In January the sunny Carolinas shall
ring with his trill—the dear sunny Carolinas that would now so gladly wring his
neck. Florida and the Gulf shore shall break the heart of winter for him; and
even in Mobile, in Natchez, and New Orleans shall his purling song be heard.
" The war has not yet lasted a year, and already
an American citizen can say what he thinks in the
capital of the country ! It has not lasted a year, and already he can say
in the shadow of Congress that he
loves liberty and hates slavery ! Who says we have had no victory ? Who says
there has been no advance? In the salons of the national metropolis it may not
yet be fashionable, but it is tolerated, to think that a gentleman pays for the
labor he employs, and does not sell the children of
other people to pay his own debts. Hallelujah! And there are people who complain
of inaction! Hallelujah! And there are said to be people who think that
Liberty once having a fair hold of
Washington
is going to let go again ! There were people who knew that Columbus could not
make an egg stand on end. There were people who saw him trim his little sail
away from Palos, and they thought him a fool. They had nearly got through (Next
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