Presidential movements in the United States--a meeting in Behalf of Lincoln.
A meeting in favor of
Lincoln for the next Yankee Presidency, was held at the Cooper Institute, New York, on the 18th inst. There was a glee club, and the usual electioneering accompaniments.
The first speaker was the chairman,
Mr. Charles S
Spence.
He said:
‘
The protest against the postponement of the Baltimore Convention, and to speak for the renomination to the office which he so worthily and wisely fills--[great applause,] --of the present
President of our country, this club meets here to-night.
We meet at an hour of joy and triumph--[applause]--for the bugle notes of overwhelming victory are every moment being borne to us on the southern winds.
The heroic military chieftain selected by the
President to lead our armies has the rebellion by the throat--[applause] --and it is reeling before his terrific blows, while the Administration at
Washington is sustaining him with reinforcements and supplies.
The end is at hand.
After the storm comes the calm.
Worn and weary by the usual cares and labors of his office, having deserved well of his country by reason of his patient industry, his inflexible integrity, his pure and unselfish patriotism, and by his fixed determination to restore the
Union, another term of office awaits
Abraham Lincoln.
[Tremendous cheering] He has had a term of war — he shall have one of peace; [applause;] he has ruled over a divided country.--he shall rule over a united one; [applause;] he has been
President of the
North--he shall be
President of the
South--[great applause]--and then, with
Lincoln at the head of the
Government, and
Grant at the head of the army, we will vindicate the
Monroe doctrine, [cheers,] and hurl
Maximilian, and the
French bayonets which support him, into the sea. [Cheers.]
’
The
Lincoln Glee Club then gave "
Lincoln and Union" with great acceptation.
Mr Isaac N
Arnold, a member of Congress from
Illinois, pronounced the gorilla to be the "Great Apostle of Liberty," and said:
‘
It is his mission to restore national unity, on the basis of universal liberty.
He is to lead the people through this revolution and preserve the old safe guard of freedom embodied in Magna Charia and the
Constitution of the United States.
When he leaves the Presidential chair, in 1869, we are to be one people, one nation, and every man secured in the enjoyment of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Every man equal before the law. --Every man enjoying liberty of speech, the freedom of the press, trial by jury, and the writ of
habeas corpus. [Cheers.] From the day of the commencement of the public life of
Mr Lincoln, his life has been consecrated to one purpose — that of freeing his country from
African slavery.
If slavery is, as has been said dead, then
Abraham Lincoln, of a truth, has slain the monster.
There are dangerous elements in our midst, and a Presidential election in the midst of a civil war will try the capacity of the people for self- government as they have never been tried before.
We are in the midst of rushing torrents of opinion and passion, dangerous and difficult to control.
We are tossing on the billows of a raging sea. Anxious friends of liberty are everywhere asking, will the great American Republic strand for want of order and rule?
Confidence in our success has been continually in crossing.
Is it wise to change our leader in the midst of this storm, and while all the world is admiring the honesty, the justice, the fidelity, and the wisdom of the leader?
No, rather let us give no indications of weakness or division among ourselves, but uniting, all, for our country and for liberty, let us rally around the pilot who has thus far guided us in safety.
In response to the cry that comes from the rebels at
Richmond, "
anybody but
Lincoln, " let us reply, "
nobody but
Lincoln,"until liberty triumphs, and national unity is restored.
’
"Hon"
Green Clay Smith, of Ky, who seems to be a gentleman of the brotherly love persuasion, said:
‘
The great mass of the people from one end of the country to the other were wholly ignorant of any wrong committed.
Some of them might think it strange that he, a Kentuckian, should so speak, but he was speaking from love of country.
He loved the topographical position of that country, its rivers, mountains, valleys, and plains; his heart came out with all the feeling of affection and kindness that was possible, for many an humble soul now oppressed and downtrodden in the regions of the
Southwest, in whose breasts is but one sentiment, that of love for country, and one desire, that the old flag come again and rescue them from Southern Tyranny.
It was the duty of the
American people to relieve these men, if it took a million in arms.
[Applause] He was not revengeful, and he dissented from a sentiment of hate against the misguided private soldier, however severely he had fought against us, but he would be for giving
Lee,
Davis,
Beauregard, and all that class of men — not taking them by the hand and telling them to go, but for giving them a rope to hang them with.
[Cheers.]
’
Gen Clay, in the course of his speech, announced that a dispatch had been received from the
Secretary of War announcing the retreat of the whole rebel army under
Lee, and that two corps were right on their heels giving them the very devil.
At this announcement the whole audience rose
en masse and cheered vehemently for several minutes
The speaker said he had not witnessed such a demonstration since the nomination of
Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency, and he did not expect to see its equal again until his nomination at
Baltimore.
After a song by the Glee Club, the meeting closed.
Capture of a Rebel mail,
A "highly important capture" of a "rebel mail"is announced from
Baltimore.
It was made on board a yawl boat off
Sandy Point — the parties having it in charge being Wm H
Rogers and
John Fahey, both Baltimorean, A letter from
Baltimore, in the Philadelphia
Inquirer says:
‘
When the detectives hailed them they threw over a large number of packages, &c; two or three of them did not sink and were secured.
They proved to be the most important of the lot, as they contained about one thousand letters, a considerable amount of gold, Confederate bonds,
United States money, &c. All these were taken to Col Woolley's office, and yesterday the
Colonel, assisted by several of
Gen Wallace's staff officers, made a thorough inspection of the letters Several of them were of most important character to the
Government.
Many of them relate only to family affairs, while not a few are of a more affectionate character, termed. "love letters."
’
About five hundred of the letters are addressed to persons in this city, many of whom are the most prominent merchants, etc.; some three hundred are addressed to persons in various counties of the
State.
Frederick city and
Frederick county,
Baltimore county,
Annapolis and
Cambridge, came in for the larger share of these.
It was remarkable that there were letters for nearly every post office in the
State.
The remaining three or four hundred letters are for persons in almost every State in the country, not a few of them being for parties in
New England.
The letters for
Philadelphia and New York are, in several instances, of the most important character.
The examination of this mail has revealed the fact that a constant correspondence is kept up between a number of the citizens of this State and others in the
South, and it has also given
Colonel Woolley the clue to important facts which will soon be developed, and the denouement of which will be of interest to persons in New York as well as in other places.
In many of the letters remittances were made by the writers to those to whom the letters were addressed, while in others money, clothing, &c., are asked for. The correspondence in many cases is exceedingly humorous, and in others quite sorrowful, but we are informed by
Col. Woolley that in almost every instance the writers speak in the most determined character of their confidence in the ultimate triumph of the
South.
Many of the writers detail the wants and privations to which they are subjected, and the high prices of food, clothing, &c. One states that he was receiving $5,500 per annum, but did not depend altogether on his salary, as he paid $100 per week board, and for a suit of broadcloth he paid $1,000, for a black silk hat $150, and a pair of boots $250. The price of board in hotels was $30 per day. One of the writers states that he purchased a breakfast as follows: One loaf of bread, $1; four onions, $2; one egg, 50 cents; total, $3.50; and with this meal he was satisfied until the next day. A lady states that she could do without an other dress if she could get but one pound of tea. In nearly every letter the writers advise and persuade those to whom they write to send their letters by the flag of truce boat.
A large bundic containing copies of music, just published, was among the captures; "Close up the tanks," "
Gen Morgan's Grand March, " "God Save the
Southern Land," &c, were among the number.
Southern song books, monthly magazines, daily and weekly papers, were also in profusion.
It is also stated that
Mr. S. Davis Tonge, formerly of
Baltimore, but now living in
Bainbridge, Ca., had placed at the disposal of
Col. Kane $10,000, to be expended at his discretion for the
Maryland Line, and that he had further proposed to manufacture
woolen goods to aid in clothing the men of the regiment.
The
Spotswood Hotel and Ballard's Hotel in
Richmond show complete bills of fare, but immense prices for instance; Champagne, $80 per bottle; old cognac brandy, $75;
Jeffrey sale, $15;
Alsop's pale ate, $25; eggs, $4; fish, $5 to $7; beef steak, $5; coffee and bread, $5; tea and bread, $5; vegetables from $3 to $5. So that a person taking dinner at a hotel could get off with little less than $20.
Many important matters relating to
Maryland, &c., were ascertained by the revealing of the contents of the letters, and may be made public at some future time.
More men wanted.
The United States army, and the people too, feel the enormous losses inflicted upon it by
Gen Lee. The Philadelphia
enquirer has an article on the want of more men, in which it holds this language.
It is the fashion to account for the superior energy and desperation of the rebels by saying that they have everything at stake.
It is almost time for us to recognize that we are in the same predicament.
No people in history has submitted to sacrifices greater than those of the
South--whether willingly or unwillingly, is immaterial as to practical result.
With all our superiority of resources we must fall unless we are animated with a similar spirit.
All that has value in the eyes of a free people hangs in the balance, and will inevitably be lost unless we can rise to the magnitude of the occasion.
Large as are the armies which we have put into the field, they are not in themselves sufficient.--Constant recruiting is necessary to preserve their effectiveness.
The waste of wat is fearful, and reserves are indispensable if we are to strike a final blow at the heart of the rebellion.
Herein has been our error previously and it is a cheering sign that
Gen Grant intends not to allow himself to be crippled, as our other commanders have heretofore been, unable to follow upon advantage or to properly retrieve a disaster.
The order which we publish in another column from the
Provost Marshall General shows that our policy henceforth is to keep the national forces up to the highest mark, and that when this is not accomplishes by volunteering, the efficacy of the new enrollment law is to be vigorously and perseveringly tried.
But little more than a month remains in which to furnish volunteers, and it is for our citizens to determine whether they will aid their Government now in the most effectual manner, or by inaction force the authorities to obtain men by drafting, after a delay which may have an unfortunate influence on the results of the campaign.
The rebels are now play their last cards.
They have not the material with which to repair inevitable losses.
On the other hand our strength is virtually unimpaired.
If successful at the outset, we thus have the means of rendering their defeat irretrievable.
If we should be worsted we can, by exerting ourselves in time, convert misfortune into eventual triumph.
Every motive, therefore, summons us to unrelaxing effort, and no time should be lost in raising reinforcements to keep in fighting trim the regiments of the gallant Army of the Potomac.
An Anniversary editorial — the results of a year.
The following editorial, published in the New York
News of the 18th instant, is very readable:
‘
To day completes the twelve months since the publication of the New York
News was resumed, after its suppression by the Administration.
It was suppressed for those attributes for which Galileo was persecuted, that is, for deprecating error and preaching truth.
Its publication was resumed not because its persecutors relented or repented, but because public opinion had, to a certain degree, recovered its independence, and cried shame upon this cowardly and unprecedented assault upon the liberty of the press in this Republic.
We are therefore not in debt to Government officials for the privilege of exercising a vocation valueless unless untrammeled.
What was taken from us by arbitrary power was given back to us when the popular sentiment demanded the restitution; and our subsequent course has attested that this immunity from the strong hand has not been purchased by any concessions on our part to despotism, or by any sacrifice of principle, or by any shameful bargains to subserve the will of power or the interests of faction at the expense of the country's welfare.
We endured twenty months of suppression, under silent protest, virtually placing our cause in the hands of the people, and awaiting in full confidence that judgment which they ultimately awarded beyond our expectations.
We have now enjoyed for twelve months the full liberty of expression of opinion, and, while we have not abused it, the history of our career during these twelve months shows that we have used it neither feebly nor in vain.
’
We enter, therefore, to day the second year of our resurrection from the bonds of tyranny, and looking back into the year that is past, we see that time has everywhere traced the confirmation of those doctrines that we have advocated.
It has been as we pronounced it must inevitably be, if the mad appeal to arms were persisted in. Blood enough has flowed to blot out of existence every bond of friendship between the sections.
One barren campaign has followed another always with great loss of life, but never with decisive military result.
In the beginning of these campaigns, the war journals of the
North have been boastful of anticipated triumphs, and extravagant in their prophecies of the immediate crushing of the rebellion.
At the close of these campaigns, the same journals have been almost exclusively occupied in explaining the cause of discomfiture, and in heaping ashes upon the head of some luckless General whom they had crowned in advance with the laurels of victory.
And thus, from campaign to paign, the war has dragged its slow length along, its course marked with, blood, and agony, and desolation, but the goal forever receding and never within sight.
We have now reached the most desperate period of the strife.
Men enough have been slain and wounded in
Virginia within the past twelve days to have decided an European war, and to have determined an imperial question.
But with our list of casualties counted by the sixty thousand, we have failed to advance ten miles beyond the point of starting, and the terrible slaughter has been entirely in vain.
As it has been with other
Generals in
Virginia, so it will be with
Grant.
He is now as a demigod; he will in time be railed at as a hound that misses the scent.
The war journals are as bitter in their disappointment as they are extravagant in their hopes.
They must have an object for their idolatry or for their curses.
We foretold this waste of life from the commencement of the unnatural struggle.
We have let hardly a day pass without an invocation to peace, an appeal to the true patriotism of the people to end this butchery that has converted their country into shambles.
That we have been understood and that the great truths we have uttered have been appreciated by the masses, is evident from the unexampled popularity that the
Daily News has attained within the year since our republication, that ended yesterday.
On the eighteenth May, 1863, We resumed publication, under the paralyzing influence of twenty months of constrained silence on our part, long enough, in such times of excitement and of great events, for the antecedents of a newspaper to pass almost away from public memory.
We started with a small sheet, without official patronage and with no means of securing popular patronage except the influence of the principles we vindicated.
That was enough.
In a brief while the people ascertained the attributes of the
Daily News and felt that it was the representative of their own creed.
Our circulation, both for the
Dailyand the
Weekly News increased with a rapidity that has no parallel in the history of journalism, and we were soon enabled, and, in fact, compelled, to enlarge our paper and to improve all its departments, until it is to day upon an equality in respect to size with the largest dailies of the metropolis, while in respect to its value as a chronicler of news it excels them all. Under these encouraging circumstances we commence the second year of our republication; let us hope that before its close the principles advocated by the
Daily News shall have finally triumphed over fanaticism and the thirst for power, and that its third year shall witness the pure ministration of peace healing the wounds of our war-stricken country.
A Fredericksburg letter in the New York Times says:
‘
The first Union gunboats ever anchored at
Fredericksburg came up the
Rappahannock at 4 P M yesterday, and are now lying at the wharf opposite the city.
Their names are the
Jacob Bell,
Captain Schulze; the
Yankee,
Lt Hooker, and the Fuschin;
Capt Street.
They left the mouth of the river, where for a long time they have been on blockading duty, on Monday morning, the 16th inst, dragging for torpedoes as they proceeded.
Ten were found and removed without casualties on our side, and four more not yet anchored were found and destroyed on Prowatt's Island.
’
At this point an expedition under the command of
Capt Street was sent out some distance into the country, resulting in the capture of
Acting Master Burley, of the
Rebel Navy, together with three men, and the killing of six, including
Acting Master Maxwell, formerly of the U S Navy, with the loss on our side of one killed and three wounded. The rebels taken declared their belief that, had our gunboats been two days later they would have been boarded and captured as were the
Satellite and Reliance last fail by parties organizing for that purpose.
From information received from citizens and others it is believed that there are still more torpedoes in the river off
Tappahannock and at several other points on the river.
The weather is very foggy this morning.
A correspondent of the New York
Herald gives that paper a summary of
Sheridan's raid around
Richmond.
On the 11th he captured Ashland station, destroyed here one locomotive and a train of cars, and engine-house, and two or three government building containing a large amount of stores; also destroyed six miles of railroad, embracing three culverts, two trestle bridges, and the telegraph wire.
About 7 A. M. of the 14th, he resumed the march on
Richmond.
He found the rebel
General Stuart with his cavalry concentrated at
Yellow Tavern, immediately attacked him, and after an obstinate contest gained possession of the
Brockeitown pike, capturing two pieces of artillery, and driving his forces back towards
Ashland and across the north fork of the
Chickahominy.
At the same time a party charged down the
Brook road, and captured the first line of the enemy's works around
Richmond.
During the night he marched the whole of his command between the first and second line of the enemy's works on the bluffs overlooking the line of the Virginia Central Railroad and the
Mechanicsville turnpike.
After demonstrating around the works and finding them very strong he gave up the intention assaulting, and determined to recross the Chicka- hominy at
Meadow Bridge.
It had been partially destroyed by the enemy, but was repaired in about three hours under a heavy artillery fire from a battery.
Gen Merritt made the crossing attacked the enemy, and drove him off handsomely.
The pursuit continued as far as
Gaines's Mill.
The enemy observing the recrossing of the
Chickahominy came out from his second line of works.
A brigade of infantry and a large number of dismounted cavalry attacked the divisions of
Generals Gregg and
Wilson, but after a severe contest were repulsed and driven behind their works.
Gregg's and
Wilson's divisions after collecting the wounded recrossed the
Chickahominy.
On the afternoon of the 12th the corps encamped at
Walnut Grove and
Gaines's Kill.
On the forenoon of the 13th (yesterday,) the march was resumed, and we encamped at Rottom Bridge.
The loss of horses will not exceed one hundred.
All the wounded were brought off, except about thirty cases of mortal wounds, and those were well cared for in the farmhouses of the country.
The wounded will not exceed two hundred and fifty.
and the total losses not over three hundred and fifty.
The Virginia Central Railroad bridges over the
Chickahominy, and other trestle bridges--one sixty feet in length, one thirty feet--and the railroad for a long distance south of the
Chickahominy were destroyed.
Miscellaneous.
Gen Sedgwick was shot through the head, Monday morning, whilst superintending the mounting of some heavy guns, in an angle the men had just prepared.
There was no skirmishing at the time, but an occasional sharpshooter sent a buller in that direction, which caused the men to be on the alert to dodge them
Gen Sedgwick, who was standing near them, was smiling at their narrowness, when a ball struck him in the forehead, the blood oozed from his nostrils, and he fell back dead into the arms of his
Assistant Adjutant General.
The Yankee War Department, in response to a resolution of the Senate, has given information concerning field officers since the commencement of the war, from which it appears that in the regular Army
Generals Scott,
Harney,
Wool,
Anderson, and
Ripley have retired, and
Sumner,
Mansfield, and
Totten have died,
Twiggs dismissed.
Of
Major Generals in the volunteer corps
Blair resigned, and resignation revoked.
Wm F
Smith's and
Schofield's appointment expired by constitutional limitation, and they were reappointed.--Horallo S
Wright rejected by the Senate and since appointed, and is now in command of
Sedgwick's corps.
The resignations are, Cassins M
Clay,
Jas A Garfield,
Schuyler Hamilton, Charles S
Hamilton, E D
Keyes, E D
Morgan,
Benjamin M
Prentiss, and Robert M
Schenck.
Sixteen are dead.
The "strikes" in New York continue to attract more or less attention.
There is an ugly feeling manifested by the recently discharged employees of the Sixth and Eighth Avenue Railroad Companies, owing to the fact that other men have been found to take their places on the old terms.
The latter have been threatened with violence, and it has been found necessary to keep on every car more or less policemen to prevent these menaces from being carried into practice.
The malcontents may be seen in large numbers, "nursing their wrath to keep it warm," on every corner and in every grog-shop in the upper part of the city.
In New York, Thursday evening, a sermon was delivered by the
Rev Dr Cheever on "The claims of the
Colored Race before God to a republican form of Government, and the guilt and peril of denying them those rights."The preacher took for his text the 29th, 10th and 31st verses of the 22d of
Ezekiel.
He dwelt with some severity upon the acts of the Administration and of Congress, especially the latter, in denying colored men the right of representation, and expressed his belief that the nation would be ruined by the continuance of such a policy.
On the motion of
Dexter Fairbanks, a memorial to both Houses of Congress was adopted.
