Later from the North.
New York and Philadelphia papers to the 23d are received. ‘"A dispatch from Washington, Sept. 22d, says the enemy is still falling back from the Potomac,"’ and that ‘"all is quiet along the lines."’ Gen. Crawford's wound is very serious. Lieut.-Col. Wilder Dwight, of the 2d Massachusetts, who was conspicuous at the battle of Antietam, has died of his wounds. It is stated that General Burnside was offered the command of the Army of the Potomac, but declined in favor of Gen. McClellan.--Gen. Richardson's wound has proved to be mortal. Gens. Dana and Hooker will recover. The following is Lincoln's proclamation freeing the slavesBy the President of the United States--a proclamation.
Washington, Sept. 22, 1862.
I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the constitutional relation between the United States and the people thereof in which States that relation is, or may be, suspended or disturbed; that it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress, to again recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering pecuniary aid to the free acceptance or rejection of all the slave States, so called, the people whereof may not then be in rebellion against the United States, and which States may then have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may voluntarily adopt, the immediate or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective limits; and that the efforts to colonize persons of African descent, with their consent, upon the continent or elsewhere, with the previously obtained consent of the governments existing there, will be continued; on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three all persons held as slaves within any State, or any designated State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be thenceforward and forever free; and the executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom; that the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen there to at elections where in a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State and the people thereof have not been in rebellion against the United States.
And I do hereby enjoin upon, and order all persons engaged in, the military and naval service of the United States to observe, obey, and enforce within their respective spheres of service, the act and sections above recited.
And the Executive will in due time recommend that all citizens of the United States who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the rebellion, shall (upon the restoration of the constitutional relation between the United States and their respective States and people, if the relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be compensated for all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss of slaves.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Abraham Lincoln.
Done at the City of Washington, this twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the independence of the United States the eighty seventh.
Commenting upon this proclamation, the New York Herald says: ‘ The President has issued a proclamation to the people of the rebel States. It is one of the most important documents that has emanated from the Executive Department of the Republic since the adoption of the Federal Constitution. On the 25th of July last the President, in accordance with the act of Congress approved on the 17th of that month, gave sixty days notice to those in rebellion that the property of all rebels would be confiscated, and their slaves made free, if they persisted in their suicidal course. The notice expires to-day, the 23d instant, and the proclamation now issued presents the case in its new and significant aspect. The gravity of this proclamation will strike every one. It has been forced upon the nation by the Abolitionists of the North and Secessionists of the South. It inaugurates an overwhelming revolution in the system of labor in a vast and important agricultural section of the country, which will, if the rebels persist in their course, suddenly emancipate a three or four millions of human beings, and throw them, in the fullness of their helplessness and ignorance, upon their own resources and the wisdom of the white race to properly regulate and care for them in their new condition of life. But the importance of this great social revolution will not be confined to the section where the black race now forms the chief laboring element. It will have an influence on the labor of the North and West. It will, to a certain extent, bring the black labor on the extensive grain farms of the West, unless the existing stringent laws of some of the Western States, confining the negro to his present geographical position, are adopted in all the other free States. ’
The recent slaughter near Shepherdstown — a lying account.
A correspondent of the New York Herald, writing from Sharpsburg, Md., Sept. 21, furnishes the following: ‘ Between 8 and 9 o'clock yesterday morning Gen. Martindale's brigade, of Morell's division, Porter's corps, commanded by Col. Barnes, crossed the Sharpsburg ford, and formed in line of battle near a bluff, about a quarter of a mile from the ford, and directly on the bank of the river. They had scarcely done this before the enemy emerged in overwhelming numbers from a piece of woods, a short distance ahead, and commenced a galling fire of musketry. They then advanced in close column, and the Union troops were ordered not to fire, as it was our own men advancing. This order arose from the fact that the enemy's columns was headed by a red hospital flag. and those in the front ranks had on the dress of the Union soldiers. It was supposed to be a party of our men who had previously gone over the river with a flag of truce for the purpose of bringing our wounded soldiers across, who had been made prisoners by the enemy; but when the rebels continued firing and advancing it became evident that this was a heartless ruse, invented for the purpose of deceiving our men, and to enable them at the same time to get near enough to render their fire effective, without receiving that of our men. At last they were recognized, and, though the rebels numbered five to our one, the gallant follows returned their fire, and would have met the charge bravely, (the enemy advancing for that purpose,) had not the regiment which composed the right wing of our little force become somewhat panic stricken. Even after their right was exposed an effort was made to recover it and meet the advancing foe, a regiment being ordered for that purpose; but before this could be accomplished the enemy had turned our right and opened a galling cross fire, doing terrible execution. The order to retreat was now given, and in the greatest disorder and confusion our men started for the river. leaving the dead and wounded behind and followed by the enemy. who shouted and yelled like demons, firing as they ran. They even followed our men into the river, bayonetting and shooting them, while those on the banks continued firing as long as our men were in sight. All the troops who were on the Virginia side were ordered to return with as much speed as possible, as it was not known what force the enemy might have is the neighborhood. In the meantime several batteries had been placed in position on a commanding hill on the Maryland side, and a short distance to the left of the bluff near which our force was attacked. Shot and shell rained among the enemy; but this did not deter him from following up his victory, for while a man remained in reach of their reifies they continued to fire, Scores of the wounded and dying met a watery grave. A large number of our men were taken prisoners. It is feared that our shells did more harm among our own men than to the enemy, while covering the retreat of our men across the river. Fifteen were under the arch of an old mill. One of our shells burst in the arch, killing and wounding all but one, Edwin Wilkison, of Company I, 118th Pennsylvania. ’The battle at Sharpsburg, Md.
A correspondent of the New York Tribune, writing on the 18th, of the battle of Sharpsburg, says: ‘ We have been burying our dead and carrying off the battle-field our wounded. I have just returned from the sickening spectacle. Soldiers who went through all the battles of the Peninsula say Fair Oaks and Malvern Hill were as nothing compared with it. The dead do lie in heaps, the wounded are coming in by thousands. Around and in a large barn about half a mile from the spot where General Hooker engaged the enemy's left, I counted 1,250 wounded. Along the same road and within the distance of two miles are three more hospitals each having from 600 to 700 in them, and long trains of ambulances standing in the road waiting to discharge their bloody loads. Surgeons with hands, arms and garments covered with blood, are busy amputating limbs, extracting balls, and bandaging wounds of every nature in every part of the body. Rebel soldiers in great numbers lie among our own and receive the ... a rebel officer at the 27th Alabama regiment endure the amputation of his leg without the use of chloroform. Every muscle in his face was contracted, his jaws looked as if in a death spasm, but no sound of pain issued from him. The saw and the knife did their work, but they could not wring from him an expression of physical agony. Keedysville, Boonesboro', Middletown, and I presume Frederick are being rapidly filled with the wounded from the battles of Sunday and Wednesday. The inhabitants in all these villages are laboring night and day to relieve the dying and the suffering. A more Christian people, in the practical significance of that word, I never saw. Every private dwelling is filled with the wounded. Carpets are torn up. costly furniture removed, comfortable mattresses spread upon the floor, awaiting the arrival of the ambulances. And much of this preparation for the wounded is without one word from the medical directors in regard to it. In the pleasant village of Middletown, especially, I have seen nothing in the hospitals in Washington that indicated so much thoughtfulness and devotion. All the ladies in the village are spending night and day with the wounded. In killed and wounded no battle of the war will approach it. The rebels seem to take off our officers almost before they have time to draw their men up in line of battle. Nearly all the rebel officers cannot be distinguished from the privates a short distance off. Our own can be seen a mile. The loss, however, in officers in the rebel ranks must have been very great. The bodies of Gen. Anderson and Gen. Whiting were this morning found lying among our own dead. Between forty and fifty rebel captains and lieutenants have also been found and brought to our hospitals. I have conversed with many of them, and they all admit a very heavy loss. ’The rebels have not all crossed the Potomac — sharp fighting going on all day Sunday at the Fords.
The Washington Star, of the evening of the 22d, has the following: ‘ We apprehend that the statement in this morning's papers, that the rebels had all crossed the river into Virginia by Saturday night last, is incorrect, inasmuch as we hear on authority in which we place confidence, that nearly all day yesterday there was severe fighting at some of the different fords by which Lee crossed his army, in which McClellan attacked the enemy wherever he found them on this side, and was met by rebel troops stationed to protect those actually crossing. In this engagement, we hear further, one of our regiments met heavy loss, though the aggregate loss of the rebels was much the heaviest — McC. having punished them severely. Further reconnaissances on the other side of the river in front of Washington continue to demonstrate that there is no considerable force of rebels this side of the Bull Run mountain, if, indeed, this side of the Blue Ridge; and also that Lee has been for some days sending the troops he did not take into Maryland back in the direction of Gordonsville. We presume that the fighting of yesterday, above referred to, is to be the lest of this campaign of any importance in the immediate vicinity of the Potomac. The battles of last week prove that the rebel army cannot contend successfully with McClellan's present force in that quarter; and as he is hourly gaining accessions, Lee will not fight him on his present line if he can avoid so doing, until he can draw him within a hostile country so far from his (McC.'s) base of supplies as that a huge portion of his army becomes necessarily a rear guard for his transportation and his line of communication with his base. As we have no idea that Gen. McClellan will thus afford Lee the opportunity to select his own time, place, and circumstance for the next grand battle, we believe the campaign on the upper Potomac to be well nigh ended with the defeat of the rebel plan of invading Maryland and Pennsylvania, and therefore soon hope to hear that McClellan is rapidly shifting the line of his operations to some point where he will not have a rear line of two or three hundred miles to guard when essaying to get to close quarters with the enemy. ’From Harper's Ferry.
The New York Herald has the following: ‘ Harper's Ferry was finally evacuated by the rebels on Friday afternoon. At noon on Friday they had all left there except a few pickets. A small squad also remained on the Maryland Heights, to keep up appearances, and a small force at Sandy Hook, to prevent the passage of Captain Evans's company of the Sixth regular cavalry. On Friday afternoon this company left by way of Burkittsville to join in pursuit of the retreating rebel army. On Saturday morning a number of divisions began to arrive. Early in the day an engine and two cars were run up from the Point of Rocks. Gen. Stoneman's command passed over to the Ferry, and found the place deserted just before their entrance into the town. A squad of rebels set fire to and destroyed the railroad bridge just above the Ferry. From noon of Saturday the Union troops were constantly arriving by the roads on either side of the Maryland Heights. The Heights themselves were occupied, and artillery placed in position there in the course of the afternoon, so as to command the Ferry, and the national banner again waves upon the fortifications. The town of Harper's Ferry was not destroyed or molested by the rebels, or the citizens disturbed. ’From the headquarters of M'Clellan — the Federal losses at Sharpsburg, &c.
Stuart has been making another raid. A dispatch from the Federal headquarters, dated the 21st, says he crossed the Potomac, Friday night with a regiment of infantry and seventeen pieces of artillery. Nothing is stated of what he did, but it is said he recrossed into Virginia next morning. The dispatch adds: ‘ The work of burying the dead is still continuing. They average about one thousand per day. Tomorrow will probably finish it. The Maryland Heights were yesterday occupied by a National force. The indications are that the rebels are continuing their retreat into Virginia, leaving the line of the Potomac. Divine worship was held at headquarters this evening, Bishop Whiffle, of Minnesota, officiating. A dispatch, dated the 22d, says the following is the official loss of Sumner's corps at the battle of Antietam, (Sharpsburg:) ’| Killed | 212 |
| Wounded | 899 |
| Missing | 24 |
| Killed | 335 |
| Wounded | 1,577 |
| Missing | 321 |
| Killed | 293 |
| Wounded | 1,321 |
| Missing | 203 |
| Total loss in Gen. Sumner's corps | 5,208 |
Confederates Threatening Suffolk, Va.
A letter dated Suffolk, Va., September 18, to the New York Herald, says: ‘ For some time past it has been rumored that the rebels are in force at Franklin and Zuni, repairing bridges and getting ready for the grand joint land and river advent of Merrimac No. 2. Scouting parties of the Eleventh Pennsylvania cavalry have been scouring the country from Wintonsville to Zuni, keeping close watch of the movements of the enemy. On Monday Major George Stetzel, in command of companies L and D, with two mounted howitzers, started for Holyneck Chapel, Wainvale, and South Quay. Hearing that the rebels were rebuilding the bridge at Franklin, Major Stetzel went rapidly from South Quay to Franklin, and, secreting his command in the woods, proceeded to reconnoiter Franklin. It was reported that the enemy's force consisted of two regiments of infantry, one of cavalry and a battery of artillery. As the major quietly crept forward he was received by a volley of about fifty shots from the other side of the river. Having made his observations, the major placed one of his pieces on the railroad commanding the old bridge, and the other in the road, and opened on them with grape, canister and shell; firing some thirty or forty rounds, completely shelling them out. They broke in every direction and got out of range as quickly as possible. We could not learn the effect of the shots, but from the yelling of the rebels they were supposed to be effective. The command returned to camp this morning, bringing in horses and mules for the quartermaster's department. ’Letter from Gen. M'Dowell to the President.
The following is the letter of Gen. McDowell, demanding of the President a thorough investigation of the accusation of Col. Brodhead: Washington, Sept. 6.
To His Excellency the President:
I have been informed by a Senator that he has seen a note in pencil, written by a colonel in cavalry, mortally wounded in the recent battles, stating.
among other causes, that he was dying ‘"a victim to McDowell's treachery,"’ and that his last request was that this note be shown to you. That the colonel believed this charge, and felt that his last act on earth was a great public service, there can be no question.
This solemn accusation from the grave of a gallant officer, who died for his country, is entitled to great consideration, and I feel called upon to meet it as well as so general a charge from one no longer able to support it can be met. I therefore beg you to please cause a court to be instituted for its investigation.
I ask the investigation of every subject which may in any way be supposed to have led to his belief; that it may be directed to my whole conduct as a general officer, either under another, or whilst in a separate command; to my correspondence with any of the enemy's commanders or with any one within the enemy's lines; to my conduct or the policy pursued by me toward the inhabitants of the country occupied by our troops, with reference to themselves or their property; and, further, to any imputations of indirect treachery or disloyalty to the nation, or any individual having, like myself, an important trust; whether I have or have not been faithful as a subordinate to those placed over me, giving them hearty, and, to the best of my capacity, all the support in my power; and whether I have or have not failed through unworthy or personal motives to go to the aid of, or send reinforcements to, my brother commanders.
That this subject of my alleged treachery or disloyalty will be fully inquired into, I beg that all officers, soldiers, or civilians, who know or think they know of any act of mine liable to the charge in question, be allowed and invited to make it known to the Court.
I also beg that the proceedings of the Court may be open and free to the press from day to day. To His Excellency the President:
I have the honor to be, very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
Irwin McDowell,
Comd'g 3d Army Corps, Army of Va.,
Your obedient servant,
Irwin McDowell,
Comd'g 3d Army Corps, Army of Va.,
