Abraham Lincoln's Fredericksburg Letter

JANUARY 10, 1863.]

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

19

that he has discovered your name? It is Legion, and he publishes it to warn his countrymen.

WHINING.

THAT we should be indignant with other people for doing well and being well paid for doing what we can not do at all is not surprising, however humiliating it may be. But that we should add a querulous complaint that such people do not always agree with us in opinion, and even dare to say so, is simply silly. It is surely nobody's fault that he can not deliver a lecture, for instance, with such success as to be often solicited to speak; but to whine that other people can, and that they are actually paid for it, and still further, that they say what they think, is the most amusing snivel that the press affords.

There is great discomposure, upon the part of those who do not believe the principles of the Declaration of Independence, that most of the popular Lyceum lecturers in the country do. At an utter loss how to attack them for such temerity, the most convenient thrust has hitherto been that they were "itinerants." But to this enormity is now added that they are "strollers," "radicals," "nomadic," "reformers," etc., etc.; and if you go to hear them you may be outraged by hearing something with which you do not agree.

When this sort of remark is made by a newspaper it may be likened unto a gun which kicks the marksman over. For what is a newspaper but a daily lecture from the point of view of the editor? If a man goes to hear a lecture from Mr. Beecher he knows exactly to what he exposes himself, as when he buys a copy of the Tribune or of the Journal of Commerce. To complain that he heard certain opinions from Mr. Beecher, or that he found in the Journal of Commerce sentiments precisely the reverse of those of the lecture, would be sure to elicit only the amused answer, "Why, of course; what did you expect?" To hear an editor who writes a lecture which is sold in many copies for several cents each, and read by the audience, abusing an orator who writes a lecture, which he sells in the lump for a certain sum to an audience which hears it read or spoken by the author, is a striking case of pot and kettle. The orator no more insults any one of his audience because he says what that one does not like, than a loyal editor insults a rebel because he prints an editorial unsavory to the rebellious palate. In like manner when we buy certain papers among ourselves we know what to expect, and we are zanies if we whimper that they talk treason.

It seems not to be understood by those who complain of lecturers as "radicals," that the people who buy tickets to a course of Lyceum lectures are aware of the names and views of the speakers and of the topics they are to treat. The tickets are bought with the full knowledge that the tendency of most all of the speakers is toward the conservatism of Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Adams, and directly away from that of Vallandigham and Jeff Davis. If any conservative of the Vallandigham-Davis school goes to the lecture, why should he squirm? Would he complain if he bought the Evening Post? Is there any deception? Is it not a fair bargain? Does he pay twenty-five cents to hear Wendell Phillips chant the praises of the patriarchal institution, or Bishop Clark eulogize Strauss, or Mr. Milburn extol the Yankees? Or has he made up his mind that he is insulted whenever he hears a forcible dissent from his own political, or religious, or philosophical doctrine? If he has, he is a subject for Mr. Barnum, and should be contemplated in a glass case.

Of course no reader is ignorant that the point of the objection lies beneath all. this petulance. It is simply the knowledge that the Lyceum is both an educator and an indicator; and that when the speakers most sought from one end of the country to another utterly loathe the anarchical spirit which now calls itself "Conservatism," it is a sign that the people are so true at heart as to make political charlatans and demagogues despair.

A REPLY TO A WESTERN FRIEND.

A CORRESPONDENT in Wisconsin writes to the Lounger: "You make a list of Conservatives, Dickinson, M'Carthy, Randall, Everett, Holt, Johnson, Brownlow, and Hamilton, and set them against Wood, Vallandigham, Rynders, Davis, Brooks, Toombs, Van Buren, Wigfall, Spratt, Keitt, and Rhett. You make a case, and decide it. Perhaps many good men will agree with you. But do you think the question stated with common honesty? Now let me make a case, and ask you to decide it. I choose to name as the representatives of the Conservative element of the country Seymour, Bronson, O'Conor, Washington Hunt, Ira Harris, Thurlow Weed, Robert C. Winthrop, Senators Browning, Cowan, Collamer, General McClellan, and that sort of folks; and, as their opposites, Ben Wade, Senators Chandler, Sumner, and Hale, Lovejoy, Beecher, Greeley, & Co.; and I sincerely but earnestly ask you to state frankly, as between them, where you stand."

The question is as simple as the answer shall be. That sort of folks would be doubtless surprised to find themselves classed together. Judge Collamer and Judge Harris, for instance, have no more sympathy with Mr. O'Conor's views of our general politics, and of this rebellion, than they have with Yancey's. And inasmuch as Messrs. Wood, Vallandigham, Rynders, Brooks, and Van Buren were the most ardent and conspicuous of Governor Seymour's advocates in the late election, speaking with him and for him, it is perfectly clear that their Conservatism can not radically differ from his, unless they misunderstand each other; and as the Lounger has already often enough repudiated the least sympathy with Messrs. Wood, Rynders, and Van Buren, why should his correspondent be in any doubt as to his equal want of sympathy with the men with whom they act, and of whom they are political bedfellows?

The Lounger still, and "honestly," prefers the conservatism of Mr. Everett to that of Governor

Seymour—of Mr. Dickinson to that of Fernandc Wood—of Andrew Johnson to that of John Van Buren. And as he believes that the views of Messrs. Everett, Johnson, Brownlow, Holt, and Dickinson, in regard to the scope of this war and the true policy of its conduct, do not differ substantially, however they may differ in detail, from those of Wade, Beecher, and the others, he is glad to call himself a Conservative of that school and not of the other.

—And might he not put it to his "good-natured" friend whether the case he makes is stated with any more "honesty" than the Lounger's? Of course extreme men must always be named to indicate tendencies. Senator Harris certainly does not agree in all points with Senator Wade, for instance. But does the "good-natured" man at the West "honestly" believe that, upon the whole, Judge Harris does not agree with Senator Wade more than with Governor Seymour and his friends? The Conservative in this country is the man who would preserve the spirit as well as the, form of the Government. And it is because the party at this moment which especially claims to be conservative seems to the Lounger to be entirely careless of that spirit that he denies its right to the name.

HUMORS OF THE DAY.

A GENTLEMAN recently visited the Campana Museum, for which the French Government gave $1,000,000. Every object he saw made him cry, "Admirable! first-rate!" One of the keepers saw him, and was so pleased to see at last somebody delighted with the museum, that he went up to him and said, "You are familiar with archaeology, I see, Sir; doubtless an antiquary from Heidelberg, or Vienna, or Jena?" "No, Sir; but my wife, what's dead and gone, used to sell butter in just such pots as them there." The keeper vanished, and now speaks to nobody, until after a regular introduction.

A Bangor paper says that a pig lately walked into a tailor's shop there, and before he was noticed by the proprietor made his way toward the cutting board—attracted, doubtless, by the smell of cabbage in that locality.

A gentleman, one evening, was seated near a lovely woman, when the company around him were proposing conundrums to each other. Turning to his companion, the said, "Why is a lady unlike a mirror?" She "gave it up." "Because," said the rude fellow, "a mirror reflects without speaking, a lady speaks without reflecting." "And why are you unlike a mirror?" asked the lady. He could not tell. "Because a mirror is smooth and polished, and you are rough and unpolished." The gentleman owned there was one lady who did not speak without both reflecting and casting reflections.

"The boy at the head of the class will state what were the Dark Ages of the world." Boy hesitates. "Next. Master Biggs, can you tell me what the Dark Ages were?" "I guess they were the ages before spectacles were invented." "Go to your seats."

"So you wouldn't take me to be twenty!" said a rich heiress to an Irish gentleman, while dancing the polka. "What would you take me for, then?"

"For better or worse," replied the son of the Emerald Isle.

"You've destroyed my peace of mind, Betsy," said a desponding lover to a truant lass.

"It can't do you much harm, John, for 'twas an amazing small piece you had, any way," was the quick reply.

"Sir, I will make you feel the arrows of my resentment."

"Ah, Miss, why should I fear your arrows when you never had a beau?"

There are two kinds of cats—one with nine lives, the other with nine tails; the former always fall upon their own feet, the latter upon other's backs.

At a wedding recently, when the officiating priest put to the lady the question, "Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband?" she dropped the prettiest courtesy, and with a modesty which lent her beauty an additional grace, replied, "If you please."

"I am an unlucky man, gentlemen, exclaimed a poor fellow. "If I were to seize Time by the forelock I do believe it would come right out, and leave him as bare as a barber's block."

"It is all very pretty talk," said a recently married old bachelor, who had just finished reading an essay on the "Culture of Women," just as a heavy milliner's bill was presented to him—"'tis all very pretty this cultivation of women; but such a charge as this for bonnets is rather a heavy top-dressing—in my judgment."

There are ties which should never be severed, as the ill-used wife said when she found her brute of a husband hanging in the hay-loft.

A celebrated Parisian dandy was ordered by his physicians to follow a course of sea-bathing at Dieppe. Arrived at that delightful town, he ordered a machine and attendant, and went boldly into the water. He plunged in bravely, but in an instant after came up puffing and blowing. "Francis," said he, "the sea smells detestably; it will poison me. Throw a little eau de Cologne into the water, or I shall be suffocated!"

"Say, Caesar Augustus, why am your legs like an organ-grinder?" "Don't know, Mr. Sugarloaf; why is they?" "'Cos they carry a monkey about the streets."

They tell the story of a young lady of temperate habits who was advised by her physician to take ale to fatten her up. She bought a quart bottle of the article, and drank a tea-spoonful twice a day in a tumbler of water; but finding that she was fattening too rapidly, reduced the dose one half, and thus kept within bounds.

A gentleman having engaged a bricklayer to make some repairs in his cellar, ordered the ale to be removed before the bricklayer commenced his work. "Oh, I am not afraid of a barrel of ale, Sir," said the man. "I presume not," said the gentleman; "but I think a barrel of ale would run at your approach."

"Josh, does the sun ever rise in the West?" "Never." "Never?" "Never!" "You don't say so! Well, you won't get me to emigrate to the West, if it's always night there. I've a cousin who is ever boasting how pleasant it is in that region, but it must be all moonshine."

Mrs. Partington is of opinion that Mount Vesuvius should take sarsaparilla to cure itself of eruptions. The old lady thinks it has been vomiting so long nothing else would stay on its stomach.

It is but an ill-filled mind that is filled with other people's thoughts.

DOMESTIC INTELLIGENCE.

CONGRESS.

ON Tuesday, December 23, in the Senate, the annual report of the Secretary of the Interior was received, also the report of Hon. Reverdy Johnson on General Butler's administration of affairs at New Orleans. Senator Lane, of Kansas, gave notice of a bill to authorize the raising of a force of two hundred regiments of negro soldiers. Senator Saulsbury's resolution in reference to the alleged sending of Maryland troops into Delaware at the last election was discussed for some time, but no final disposition was made of it. The Committee on the Conduct of the War presented their report on the recent battle at Fredericksburg. The Bankrupt bill was then taken up, and its consideration occupied the remainder of the open session. An executive session was held, after which the Senate, in accordance with the resolution adopted by the House on Monday, adjourned to meet on the 5th of January, 1863. —In the House, Mr. Pendleton, of Ohio, moved to have placed on the Journal the entire protest of the thirty-six members against the President's suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, but the House negatived the motion by 74 against 20. The Ways and Means Committee's bill providing for the executive and judicial expenses for the year ending with June, 1864, was reported and made the special

order for the 5th of January, 1863. The Postal Committee also reported a bill, which was passed, authorizing the Postmaster-General to establish a postal money order system. The bill relative to the Sioux and Dacotah Indians was taken up in Committee on the Whole; but when the time for taking a vote arrived there was not a quorum present, and the subject was laid over. The negro question was then discussed for some time, after which the House adjourned, to meet on the 5th of January, 1863.

REPORT ON THE BATTLE OF FRREDERICKSBURG.

The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War reported, on 23d, in answer to a Senate resolution of the 18th inst. calling on that committee to inquire into the facts relating to the recent battle at Fredericksburg, Virginia, and particularly as to what officer or officers are responsible for the assault, that they had proceeded to the head-quarters of the Army of the Potomac and taken the depositions of Major-Generals Burnside, Sumner, Franklin, and Hooker, and Brigadier-Generals Woodbury and Haupt, and, on their return to Washington, those of Major-General Halleck and Brigadier-General Meigs. All the facts relating to the movements of the army under General Burnside, the forwarding of pontoons and supplies, the recent battle at Fredericksburg, are so fully and clearly stated in the depositions submitted that the committee report the testimony without comment. The testimony shows that General Burnside made the attack on his own responsibility, but that General Halleck is mainly answerable for the non-arrival of the pontoons at Falmouth till it was too late to cross safely.

A LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT.

"EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, Dec. 22, 1862.

"To the Army of the Potomac;

"I have just read your Commanding General's preliminary report of the battle of Fredericksburg. Although you were not successful, the attempt was not an error, nor the failure other than an accident. The courage with which you, in an open field, maintained the contest against an intrenched foe, and the consummate skill and success with which you crossed and recrossed the river in the face of the enemy, show that you possess all the qualities of a great army which will yet give victory to the cause of the country and of popular government. Condoling with the mourners for the dead and sympathizing with the severely wounded, I congratulate you that the number of both is comparatively so small. I tender to you, officers and soldiers, the thanks of the nation.

"ABRAHAM LINCOLN."

ANOTHER REBEL RAID.

On Saturday, 27th ult., the rebels made a dashing attack with cavalry and artillery in front of Dumfries. The place was held by the Fifth, Seventh, and Sixty-sixth Ohio Volunteers, with a section of a battery. Being worsted at this point, after a brief contest, the rebels pushed on to Occoquan, where they met Colonel Candy's command, and had another brush with them. Considerable loss occurred on both sides, and the enemy again made for Anandale, by way of Bull Run and Wolf Run, and thence toward Vienna, which place they passed through at midnight. Meantime General Geary hastened to iutercept them, and cause up with them between Dumfries and Bull Run, chasing them southward. They seized the telegraph office at Burke's Station and burned the bridge at Acotink. The enemy do not appear to have gained any thing by this bold raid except a few sutler's wagons and some ambulances which they picked up on the way. They captured one gun at Dumfries, but were compelled to abandon it. They were reported to be 4000 strong, but this is probably an overestimate.

WINCHESTER REOCCUPIED.

The news from the Shenandoah Valley represents that the rebels have evacuated Winchester and have gone toward Staunton, destroying the railroad as they went. The destitution at Winchester is reported as fearful. General Jones, with 2500 rebels, had occupied it for some time past; but the Union troops, under Colonel Keyes, advanced from Romney on Christmas morning and took possession of the town.

A CALIFORNIA STEAMER CAUGHT BY THE "ALABAMA."

On the 7th December the pirate Alabama came across the Ariel, bound from New York to Aspinwall, off the coast of Cuba, and brought her to by sending a 68-pound shot through her foremast. Captain Semmes then took off her captain, and held him a prisoner for three days, expressing his determination at the same time to land the passengers either at some point on the island of Cuba or St. Domingo, and then to destroy the vessel. At the earnest remonstrance of Captain Jones, in behalf of the women and children on board, however, he consented to let her proceed. The Alabama started in pursuit of the Champion, then on her return voyage to New York, but failed to find her. Captain Jones carried the Ariel safe into Aspinwall, and arrived at this port on 28th, but brought no gold. With the fear of the Alabama before his eyes, he wisely left the treasure at Aspinwall.

ANOTHER PRIVATEER AFLOAT.

By advices from Havana, it appears that the steamer Florida, otherwise and better known as the Oreto, has succeeded in escaping from Mobile, with a new of one hundred men, having run the gauntlet of the blockade in the darkness of the night.

A ROAR FROM JEFF DAVIS.

Jefferson Davis has issued a violent retaliatory proclamation to the emancipation proclamation of Mr. Lincoln, denouncing the course of General Butler in New Orleans in vehement terms, and dooming him and all the officers in his command to death by the halter, when they are caught. Jeff knew, when he issued his proclamation, that Butler had been removed.

A NEW WAY TO COLLECT OLD DEBTS.

The firm of John N. Cocke & Co., in Portsmouth, Virginia, having refused to pay their debts to Northern citizens, on the ground that a law of the Confederate States has released and discharged them from all obligations to Northern creditors, General Viele has issued a proclamation, informing said firm that their excuse for refusal to pay is a treasonable shun, and that if they do not pay up a sufficient amount of their property will be seized and sold to discharge the debt.

DESTRUCTION OF THE "CAIRO."

The Union gun-boat Cairo has been destroyed in the Yazoo River by the explosion of a rebel torpedo. A large rent was made in her bottom, and she began to fill rapidly. The crew, however, got all safe ashore before she went down, although with some difficulty. Other torpedoes, in the shape of ordinary demijohns filled with combustibles, were discovered by our fleet, and taken up without doing any mischief.

FOREIGN NEWS.
ENGLAND.

THE ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH AGAIN.

THE Atlantic Telegraph Company has held a very encouraging meeting in London, at which the plan for raising £600,000 sterling for the purpose of laying a new cable was submitted to the assemblage. £75,000 sterling had been subscribed. The new capital stock will be issued in shares of the value of £5 sterling each.

GREECE.

A PORTUGUESE KING.

The British Government has agreed with the other protecting Powers to respect the protocol by which Prince Alfred is prevented from accepting the throne of Greece; this appears to have given satisfaction to the French Government and the Cabinet of Russia. The three Powers have agreed to recommend to the Greeks as their ruler Ferdinand, king consort of Portugal, father of the present king of that country. Ferdinand acted as Regent of Portugal during the minority of his son. He is a duke of the royal house of Saxony, forty-six years of age, and very popular.

A FLATTERING ACCEPTANCE.

LITTLE BOTTLES.—"Ah! Miss Laura, you will favaw me with your delightful company in a sleigh-ride—ah! I suppose—of course—you know!"

MISS LAURA.—"Bottles, certainly! Right off—now—as soon as you please. Take a sleigh-ride with you or any other man!"