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NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 27, 1865.
SINGLE COPIES TEN CENTS. $4.00 PER YEAR IN ADVANCE.
Entered according
to Act of Congress, in the Year 1865, by
Harper & Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the
Southern District of New York.
ing Savannah on April 28, having marched at least six hundred and fifty miles.
PAYNE THE ASSASSIN.
IN regard to LEWIS PAYNE, the assassin
who entered
Secretary SEWARD'S sick room and inflicted upon him and his
son wounds intended to prove fatal, little is yet publicly known. We publish his
portrait on this page. Apparently he was a hired assassin dispatched from
Canada. He is said to be an outlaw from Kentucky, and to have been concerned in
the St. Albans raid and other schemes of murder and arson concocted in Canada.
He was captured at Mrs. SURRATT'S house in the
disguise of a laboring man.
The course of the trial now going on at
Washington will develop the biography of
PAYNE - if indeed that be his real name. This trial has for its principal object
not merely the conviction of PAYNE
and ATZEROT, and the other tools of this base plot, but the disclosure of
an extensive conspiracy. The agents in Richmond, and those in Canada,
commissioned from Richmond—who they are,
what they have attempted, and by what means—are the central objects about
which this great trial revolves. It was for this reason that some parts of the
testimony was given in secret, in
order that no warning might be given to those thus implicated. It was for this
reason that so much care was necessarily
taken to prevent any but loyal men from pleading as counsel. But the history of
this trial is yet to be written. The infernal schemes for murdering
and plundering peaceful citizens, and even for burning clown crowded places of
amusement over the heads of defenseless women and children, and the plots for
torturing and starving our prisoners, will no doubt be found but parts and
parcels of the gigantic crime of treason which culminated in the murder of our
President and the attempt to assassinate his
Cabinet.
WE give on
page 324 an illustration of the capture of
Fort Mahone, commonly
known as Fort "Damnation," by the Ninth Army Corps, early in the morning of
April 3.—The charge was as impetuous as its conduct was skillful. The
chevaux de frise, which was broken through by the furious onset of the
national troops, was, after the capture of the fort, carried over to the other
side, so as to form a protection
against au attempt on the part of the rebels to recapture the work. The troops
were thus enabled to hold the fort until the arrival of reinforcements.
PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S
BURIAL.
IT was on a beautiful May day
that President LINCOLN was buried
at Oak Ridge,
CAPTURE OF DAVIS.
A PICKED company of WILSON'S
command captured
JEFFERSON DAVIS
on the morning of May 10, at Irwinsville, Georgia. The company
was commanded by
Colonel PRITCHARD, of
the Fourth Michigan. The
following is
General WILSON'S
dispatch announcing the
capture :
MACON, GA., 9.30 A.M., May
13, 1865.
Hon. E. M. Stanton, Sec.
of War:
Lieut.-Colonel
HARDEN,
commanding
the First Wisconsin, has just arrived
from Irwinsville. He struck the trail of
DAVIS at
Dublin, Laurens
County, on
the evening of the 7th, and followed him
closely, night and day, through the pine
wilderness of Alligator Creek and Green
Swamps, via Cumberlandsville to Irwinsville.
At Cumberlandsville Colonel HARDEN
met Colonel
PRITCHARD,
with 150
picked men and horses of the Fourth
Michigan.
HARDEN
followed the trail
directly south, while
PRITCHARD,
having
fresher horses, pushed down the Ocmulgee
toward Hopewell, and thence by
House Creek to Irwinsville, arriving
there at midnight of the 9th.
JEFF
DAVIS had not
arrived. From a citizen
PRITCHARD learned that his party
were encamped two miles out of the town.
He made
dispositions of his men, and surrounded
the camp before day.
HARDEN had
camped at 9
P.M. within
two miles, as
he afterward learned, from
DAVIS. The
trail being too indistinct to follow, he
pushed on at 3 A.M., and had gone but
little more than one mile when his advance
was fired upon by men of the
Fourth Michigan. A fight ensued, both
parties exhibiting the greatest determination.
Fifteen minutes elapsed before
the mistake was discovered. The firing
in this
skirmish was the first warning
that
DAVIS received. The captors report
that he hastily put on one of his wife's
dresses and started for the woods, closely
followed by our men, who at first thought
him a woman, but seeing his boots while
he was running, they suspected his sex
at once. The
race was a short one, and the
rebel President was soon brought to bay.
He brandished a bowie-knife and showed
signs of battle, but yielded promptly to
the persuasions of COLT's
revolvers, without
compelling the men to fire. He expressed
great indignation at the energy
with which he was pursued, saying that
he had believed our Government were
too magnanimous to hunt down women
and children. Mrs.
DAVIS remarked to
Colonel HARDEN, after the excitement
was over, that the men had better not
provoke the President, or "he might
hurt some of 'em." REAGAN behaves
himself with dignity and resignation.
The party, evidently, were making for
the coast. J. H.
WILSON,
Brevet Major-General.
The captured party included
DAVIS'S
family, with
REAGAN,
Postmaster-General; Colonel HARRISON,
Private Secretary ; Colonel JOHNSON,
Aid-de-Camp; Col. MORRIS, Colonel LUBBICK, Lieut.
HATHAWAY. and others.
Less than five years ago Brevet Major-General
JAMES H. WILSON, the captor of
JEFFERSON DAVIS, was a cadet at West Point. He
was born in Southern Illinois, about the year 1840.
He was made Second Lieutenant at the beginning
of the war, to date from June 10, 1861.
He
occupied the position of
Chief of Engineers on the Staff of
General W. T. SHERMAN in the
expedition to
Hilton Head, South Carolina.
In the operations
against
Pulaski
he rendered valuable service in finding
a passage for gun-boats drawing ten feet
of water and clear of
the guns of the fort. This
enabled our troops to establish a battery at Venus Point. Lieut.
WILSON remained
in the Department of the South, conspicuously
engaged on engineer duty until the
summer of 1862,
when he served for a short time as aid to
General McCLELLAN. On
November 3, 1862, he was
appointed Assistant Inspector - General, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel
of Volunteers, and assigned to
General
GRANT, by whom he was for several months assigned to duty
on the staff of
Major-General
JAMES B. McPHERSON. During the operations in
Mississippi and against Vicksburg Colonel WILSON was again conspicuous
for his engineering skill ;
and in the brilliant victories of General
GRANT, in the vicinity of Chattanooga, won the official commendation of
General W. F. SMITH, with
whom he was then acting. On
December 31, 1863, he was nominated Brigadier-General of Volunteers, to date
from October 30, 1863, and was confirmed May
12, 1864, upon the recommendation
of Lieutenant-General
GRANT. In January, 1861, General WILSON was appointed chief of the Cavalry
Bureau in Washington. In April following he was assigned to the command of the
Third Division Cavalry
Corps,
Major-General
SHERIDAN,
Army of the Potomac. During General
GRANT'S
Virginia campaign he acted independently, to the right and rear of the
army, to destroy railroads. He also covered the rear from Coal Harbor to the
south side of the
James River. In June and the beginning of July he conducted a
raid south of Richmond, destroying
the railroads and throwing the enemy in a great state of alarm. After the
necessity
of cavalry operations in the vicinity of Richmond
and Petersburg had passed, General
WILSON
was transferred to the
Shenandoah Valley, where he added to his reputation as an
efficient officer. For distinguished service he was breveted Major
General of Volunteers, to date from October 5, 1864. During the winter he
was transferred to the Department of the Cumberland, and by
Gen. Thomas was
placed in command of the cavalry corps of the Army of the Cumberland. On March
23, 1865, General WILSON started
from Chickasaw, Alabama, with his troops well mounted and equipped. After
routing RODDY at Monticello, he moved on and annihilated the combined forces of
FORREST, LYON, and CHALMERS, under
FORREST, and occupied Selma, Alabama, on April 2. Thence he moved on to
Montgomery, thence swept across Georgia, reach-
Springfield. At noon
the remains were brought from the
State House in the same hearse
which had carried
LYON and
THOMAS H. BENTON to their graves. The hearse was surmounted by a beautiful crown of
flowers. From the portico, as the procession advanced, a chorus of hundreds of
voices sang the hymn
"Children of the heavenly King,
Let us journey as we sing."'
The
Funeral Procession was under the immediate
direction of
General HOOKER. The President's
tomb is two miles from Springfield. A dirge was
sung; and after the reading of Scripture, a prayer,
and a hymn, the
President's
second Inaugural was read. A
dirge succeeded, when Bishop SIMPSON
delivered
the funeral
oration. It was in the highest
degree eloquent and patriotic. "We have," says a correspondent of the
Times, (Continued Next
Page)
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