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War Matters.

From various sources, we make up the following brief summary of war news.


Gen. M'Clellan's address to the Army of the Potomac.

Headq'rs. Army of the Potomac
Fairfax Court House, Va.,
March 14, 1862.
Soldiers of the Army of the Potomac.
For a long time I have kept you inactive, but not without a purpose. You were to be disciplined, armed, and instructed. The formidable artillery you now have, had is be created. Other armies were to move and accomplish certain results. I have held you back that you might give the death-blow to the rebellion that has distracted our once happy country. The patience you have shown and your confidence in your General, are worth a dozen victories.

These preliminary results are now accomplished. I feel that the labors of many months have produced their fruit. The army of the Potomac is now a real army, magnificent in material, admirable in discipline and instruction, excellently equipped and armed, your commanders are all that I could wish. The moment for action has arrived, and I know that I can trust in you to save our country. As I ride through your ranks I see in your faces the sure pressed of victory — I feel that you will do whatever I ask of you.

The period of inaction has passed, I will bring you now face to face with the Rebels, and only pray that God may defend the right.

In whatever direction you may move, however strange my actions may appear to you ever bear in mind that my fats is linked with yours, and that all I do is to bring you where I know you wish to be in the decisive battle field. It is our business to place you there. I am to watch over you as a parent over his children; and you know that your General loves you from the depth of his heart. It shall be my care, as it has ever been, to gain success with the least possible loss; but I know that if it is necessary you will willingly follow me to your graves for our righteous cause.

God smiles upon us, victory attends not yet I would not have you think that our aim is to be obtained without a manly struggle. I will not disguise it from you that you have brave foes to encounter — foemen well worthy of the steel you will use so well.

I shall demand of you great and heroic exertion, rapid and long marches, desperate combats and privations. Perhaps we will share all these together; and when this sad war is over, we will all return to our homes and feel that we can ask no higher honor than the proud consciousness that we belonged to the Army of the Potomac.

George B. McClellan,
Major General Commanding.

The battle of Elkhorn--Gen. Van-Dorn's official report.

The Fort Smith Bulletin, of the 11th inst., contains the following official telegraphic report of the battle of Elkhorn, sent to Gen. A. S. Johnston and the War Department at Richmond:

Headq'rs. Trans Mississippi District. March 9, 1862. via Hog Eye, March 10.
Fought the enemy, about twenty thousand strong on the 7th and 8th, at Elkhorn, Arkansas. Battle, first day, from 10 A. M. until after dark. Loss heavy on both sides. Generals McCulloch and McIntosh, and Col. Herbert, were killed. Gens. Price and Slack were wounded. Gen. Price flesh wound in the arm. The other severely if not mortally. Many officers were killed and wounded but as there is some doubt in regard to several, I cannot yet report their names. Slept on the battle-field first night, having driven the enemy from their position. The death of Generals McCulloch, McIntosh and Herbert early in the action, threw the troops on the right under the command in confusion. The enemy took a second and stronger position, and being without provisions and the right wing somewhat disorganized, I determined to give battle on the 8th on their fronts for the purpose of getting off the field without the danger of a panic, which I did with success, but with some losses. I am now encamped with my whole army fourteen miles west of Fayetteville, having gone entirely around the enemy. I am separated from my train, but think it is safe on the Elm Spring road to the Boston mountains. The reason why I determined to give battle at once upon my arrival to assume command of the army, I will give in my report at an early day.

Earl Van-Dorn,
Major-General Commanding.

Later particulars.

From a special dispatch to the Memphis Appeal, dated Fort Smith, March 19th we copy the following:

Mr. Kittle, Orderly Sergeant of Capt. Galloway's company, in McCulloch's brigade, who was taken prisoner on the last day of the fight at Elkhorn, made his escape, along with several others, twenty miles this side of Springfield, Mo., on the 17th instant, and arrived here to-day. From him I am able to give you the additional particulars of the fight:

The enemy's loss, killed and wounded, was 2,600--not less than 800 killed.

The 85th Illinois regiment, Col. Glaster, was badly cut up. They lost 880 men, killed and wounded.

When Mr. Kittle passed through Cassville, there were 800 wounded at that place.

They took 499 of our men prisoners, including commissioned officers, privates and citizens.

The following is a portion of our officers taken prisoners: Colonel Mitchell, of Arkansas; Colonel Stone, of Mississippi; Captain Galloway, of Little Rock, Captain Hallowell, of Dardanelle, Arkansas; Captain Williams, of Arkansas; Lieutenant Mason, of Texas; Lieutenant Manual, Third Louisiana Regiment; Colonel Hebert, Major Tunnard, and Captain V. J. Lizini of the Third Louisiana. Hebert, Tunnard and Lizini have since been exchanged.

The Federals are doubtless preparing to make another attack.

A Lieutenant Colonel was the highest officer killed on the Federal side.

Two companies of a Texas regiment were sent under a flag of truce to bury our dead.--They were filed upon by the enemy.

Our total killed was 96. We brought all our wounded away with us when we fell back.


Federal loss at Fort Donelson.

The Nashville Times (Federal) says:

‘ The heaviest loss to any one of the Federal regiments at Fort Donelson, was the 11th Illinois, which went into the fight with five hundred men and officers, and came out with one hundred and seventy. Two companies in this regiment, company K, Capt. Carter, of Lasalle, went into action with sixty-two men and came out with nine; company H, Capt. Coates, of Pern, went in with fifty-one men and came out with ten. This will give an idea of the hard fighting and terrible loss sustained.


Nashville.
[from the New Orleans Picayune.]

The Federals have not altogether suppressed communication from Nashville — at least we see that letters dated at that city still get through to New Orleans. We have had sight of one dated on the 9th, addressed by a lady in that city to a portion of her family here, which enable as to correct most favorably, and with entire authority the newspaper reports by the Federalists of the Unionist feeling which they found in that city. Written in the freedom of a correspondence entirely domestic, it relates incidents, of which we have obtained the liberty to mention several, at exhibiting the true dispositions of the people of Nashville, and the noble spirit of patriotism which animates her women. The writer herself is one of those true-hearted Southern mothers who have given their own time and cares to the comforts of the soldier, and inspires a whole family with the devotion of patriots.

She contradicts with indignation the Cincinnati story that the city of Nashville was white with flags the day the gunboats arrived. There was not a single white flag and only three Union once. The following incident is well worth repeating:

"While a long string of Federals were marching along one of our streets a few days ago, a bright little fellow looked on very dolefully, and at last screamed out, 'Hurrah for Jeff Davis.' A Yankee said loudly, 'Pshaw, hurrah for the devil.' ‘"All right, said the boy; 'you hurrah for your captain and I'll hurrah for mine.' A lady told me she heard him."’

The ladies of Nashville keep entirely aloof from the enemy. The letter says:

‘ "The young ladies never go on the street.-- Not one has received a Federal visitor. All have declined, with a single exception, in a single case, for a peculiar reason. The officers got a specimen of the manner in which they are regarded at a place where they visited, in form, where a young girl of fourteen was present. She had a Southern flag on the piano. The officers asked her to play for them. 'She,' said she, 'could play nothing but Southern songs.' They jestingly told her that she would yet marry a Federal offi-

cer; she spoke out: 'Not to save her own life.' One of them sold he was a candidate for matrimony, and would like to marry a Southern woman. She said, quickly: 'There is not a lady in the Southern Confederacy that would have you.' "

’ They got many hard lessons of the spirit of the Southern people, from the mouths of girls and boys who speak for their fathers, and brothers who are absent in the wars, and for the race which is to succeed them. The following passage has some significance:

‘ "Colonel Bryan's and several other houses were searched yesterday for sick Texans.-- None were found, for on the day of the panic the well ones want all over town and took their sick comrades away; but some folks are afraid of Texas rangers and Morgan's men"

’ These things corroborate, from the very scene, the reports that are now going North, that Gen. Boeil is deeply disappointed at the reception of the Union forces at Nashville. Be has been enable to discover any material out of which a Northern Government can be reconstructed, other then the military material which he carries with him; and it will take an indefinite amount of that to colonies and govern even a position of the great region he has commenced traversing.


No Union sentiment in Tennessee.

The following is a copy of a dispatch from Chicago to the Northern Associated Press:

‘ There is no spark of the Union feeling here, and nobody pretends to deny the fact. The people of Clarksville glory in secession, and at the same time are trembling lost the town should be burned. There was a large quantity of rebel stores a portion of which was carried off and the remainder destroyed. The rebel leaders shipped a thousand negroes last week from Clarksville.


Confederate prisoners at Chicago.

The Chigago Times, of the 6th inst., states the number of Confederate captured at Fort Donelson, and now confined at Camp Douglas, Chicago, to be as follows: Floyd's Va. Artillery, 34 Gray's Virginia Artillery, 50 French's Va., Artillery, 43; Murray's Battery, 95; Cumberland's Battery, 55; 60th Tenn., 854; 20th Miss., 427; 27th Ala., 180; 2d Tenn. 627; 10th Tenn., 608; 42d Tenn., 424; 40th Tenn., 249, 49th Tenn., 450; 26th Tenn., 65, 2d Ky., 136; 2d Ala., 84, 50th Va., 10; 51st Tenn., 17--total 5,179. The Times says the number has heretofore been set down at 7,000 but that these figures are accurate;


An example worthy to be followed.

The course pursued by a gentleman named below by the Jackson Mississippian, must be admired, and should be emulated:

The Hon. C. P. Smith, Chief Justice of the State, is actively engaged in raising men for the defence of the country and the maintenance of our liberties. Judge Smith has engaged in this service with no desire, laudable as it may be, to attain a position of any grade in the army, for, dignified as he is with the first judicial position in the State, no desire to obtain office can be imputed to him. His object is to raise men, and the accomplishment of that object will compensate him for any personal sacrifices he may make. His motto is, "The country must be defended and its independence secured." And to advance these objects he is ready to serve in any capacity with those where willing to defend it.


Just.

A writer in the Memphis Appeal gives our military strategists the following rap over the knuckles:

‘ The people have been misled and deceived as to the number of our defenders on the Bowling Green line. Of this kind of fatal "strategy" there must be an end. Deal frankly with the people, and tell them — as the Governor of our sister State of Arkansas tells them-- that the entire power of the Commonwealth is needed to drive back the despoiler of their homes. Let us have no more humbug — no more of that military mystery and secretiveness which falls us so deplorably in the hour of need, by stunning us with the sudden confession of its own insufficiency — I had almost said its imbecility. We must base our operations, not upon what the enemy may fear to undertake, but upon what we can assuredly prevent them from accomplishing.

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