The Daily Dispatch: February 6, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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Defensive Preparations.

--If any one doubts that the South is in earnest in her present attitude, a visit to the Tredegar Works, in this city, will dispel the delusion. Even the ‘"eminent Seward"’ might learn something from a survey of operations there at the present time. We have heretofore noticed the shipment of formidable implements of war to the seceding States, and there are more of the same sort in preparation. Two ten-inch Columbiads, destined for Alabama, are nearly completed; and two fierce-looking mortars, for South Carolina, will shortly be ready for the troops of that Republic. In the casting of one mortar and one gun, last week, 23,000 pounds of metal were used. Shell and cannon shot lay about promiscuously and in heaps, and a large number of men are engaged in the manufacture of these destructive messengers. Several cannon, of large and small calibre, are in process of manufacture, or already completed, and in another department the gun-carriages are getting ready, under the hands of competent workmen. The whole place has a warlike aspect, which looks strange to us who have so long lived in ‘"piping times of peace."’