From the North.
We give some additional extracts below from late Northern papers.
It is stated that the
National Republican, of
Washington, received in Fredenburg, does not claim the
Sharpsburg fight as a Federal victory, but says it can safely say that ‘"our arms suffered no disaster."’
Scenes after the surrender of Harper's Ferry.
A Federal letter from
Harper's Ferry says that no sooner had the rebels taken possession of our camps than officers and men of both armies sat down to friendly conversation, which was kept up during most of the day. It adds:
It must be said to their honor that the rebels conducted themselves in the most unexceptionable manner, from the highest officer down.
Your correspondent spent several hours in agreeable conversation, sounding them on the great question and other matters.
‘"We have,"’ said a
South Carolina Captain, ‘"150,000 men on
Maryland soil, but we do not come as an army of invasion.
You go your way and we will go ours."’
‘"What do you think about pushing us to the wall now?"’ playfully remarked another to me.--‘"How about that onward to
Richmond!"’ inquired a third ‘"
Cincinnati is ours, and so will
Washington soon be,"’ said a Georgian.
A Virginia Secessionist informed me that
Ewell was wounded at
Manassas and is now at
Winchester.
Lee they considered their most able General,
Jackson the best for speedy marches and dashes.--
Beauregard had not fallen into disgrace, but was out of health.
Magruder was drunk at Malvorn Hill, and had been transferred to another command ‘"Had it not been for him and another drunken General, we should have bagged
McClellan and his whole-force at that time."’
Sigel was considered among his ‘"countrymen"’ our ablest General.
McClellan's strategy no one feared.
How about that last retreat they said, has become a by word I will our editor of was execrated by all. He thought him an able General, but constantly leaving gape open.
‘"The only difference between us and you,"’ said a rebel
Colonel, ‘"is, that you magnify your forces in the field, while we keep our estimates down."’ The most severe battle of the war for the number engaged was that fought before
Charleston.
‘"
Jeff. Davis is very much behind the people in his measures."’
Hero I asked a South Carolinian, are you going to keep your Southern Confederacy together on the States rights theory?
‘"Give us a chance, and we will show you,"’ he retorted.
‘"If we don't make it work, we may return to the old Union, but not with
Abraham Lincoln as
President."’
The privates informed me that they had no tent equipage, and frequently marched twenty-five miles or more a day; but were content.
‘"We are fighting for our country — what are you fighting for?"’ inquired a North Carolinian of me.
Who could have believed, on looking at those groups of men scattered over the fields, eating, drinking, and conversing together, that they had in one short hour before been engaged in deadly conflict.
Destruction of Harper's Ferry bridge.
The
American says:
‘
It is believed that the rebels have taken the opportunity of their occupation of
Harper's Ferry to inflict another serious injury upon the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
From information, believed altogether reliable, we learn that they have not only destroyed the temporary railroad bridge, but also blown up some or all of the massive stone piers — If this is true, and the work of demolition has been pushed to as serious an extent as reported, it will greatly retard the operations of the company when the road is again put in their possession.
’
The late battle at Sharpsburg.
The Baltimore
American, of Saturday evening, contains a dispatch, dated that day at
Frederick, which says none of the
Federal forces had crossed the river in pursuit of the
Confederates up to 4 o'clock Friday afternoon. The rebel sharpshooters, according to a correspondent of the Philadelphia
Press, took off every Union officer who ‘"showed any, dashing courage in leading his men into action"’.
The same letter says:
‘
The victories gained are substantial, the captures important, but the decisive battle has yet to be fought.
The road to
Richmond is an open one for us now, and if the people will make one more effort to reinforce our leaders with men, and confidence, and
Providence gives us a little fair weather,
General McClellan will be in
Gordonsville ten days hence, and in
Richmond before the first hard freeze.
Our losses have been very heavy, but our army is so large that the nine thousand ‘"killed, wounded and missing"’ will not retard our advance any.--The loss in the army will be most bitterly felt in Northern families.
’
Sketch, Designs at the West.
The following paragraph, under the above caption, appears in the editorial department of the
American: ‘
Gen. Jos. E. Johnston has been assigned to a rebel command west of the
Mississippi.
This means business at the
West.
It means something different from the sort of campaigning indulged in by Pike,
McCullough, Van-
Dorn,
Hindman, and their associates.
Our Government is therefore required to reinforce
Butler, to strengthen
Cairo, and to look to it that the
Mississippi is kept open and free from obstruction.
General Pope telegraphs from the
West that the Indians are more formidable than he anticipated and asks for authority to have two regiments of volunteers mounted to pursue the
Indian war parties.
’
The following is a complete list of casualties among the
Yankee general officers in the battles in
Western Maryland:
‘
Major-General Hooker, wounded the foot;
Major-General Sedgwick, wounded severely in three places;
Major General Rodman, mortally wounded.
Major-General Richardson, wounded in shoulder severely;
Brigadier-General Mansfield, killed;
Brigadier General Hartsuft, severely;
Brigadier-General Dana, slight;
Brigadier-General Weber,
Brigadier-General Duryea, all slightly wounded.
’
The Indian War — Dreadful Atrocities.
Lincoln has authorized the
Governor of
Minnesota to let the draft go by default, and attend to the Indians.
The troops raising in that State are therefore, to be sent to the frontier.
The
Manchester Record gives an account of the massacre at
Lake Shetek. Seven of the survivors have reached that town, among them several women.
The
Record says:
‘
Mrs. Eastlick thinks the
Lake Shotek settlement was attacked by about ten
Indians.
Mr. Ireland was left on the prairie apparently mortally wounded.
Mrs. Eastlick supposed to be dead; one of her children, a boy twelve years of age, was unharmed, with his brother, twelve months old, in his arms, and another brother, six years old, lying in the grass mortally wounded.
Messrs. Everett and
Hatch, themselves badly wounded, could render no assistance in saving these children, and they were left on the prairie at the mercy of the Indians or to die of starvation.
Mr. Hurd had been killed, and his wife and children escaped, but in what direction is not known.
Mrs. Eastlick, while lying in the grass, wounded, was observed by a young Indian, who beat her severely with the butt of a gun over the head and back, and she was left by him as dead, though only insensible for the time being.
After dark she crawled to the body of her husband, who had been shot in the fight, to see whether he was dead.
She found his body cold, and, supposing that her children were also killed, she started on foot to make her escape.
She traveled during the night, and hid in the grass in the daytime.
She continued thus for several days and nights, when, almost exhausted by hunger, she determined to find something to eat, even at the risk of being discovered and murdered by the Indians.
She crawled through the grass to a corn-field, pulled an ear of corn, and had ate but two rows when she grew very sick, and was unable to eat the remainder.
That night she stopped at a house, where she killed a chicken, and with her teeth pulled the raw meat from the breast.
She was unable to eat any of it that night, but next day tore it in strips and dried them in the sun.--She ate a little, and the remainder, with three ears of raw corn, supplied her with food till rescued.
She met a mail carrier, who brought her to ‘"Dutch Charley's"’ place, where she saw her two children and the remainder of the party.
From that point they walked to
Brown's, twenty-five miles from New Ulm, from whence
Mr. Ireland was sent ahead for assistance.
Mrs. Eastlick's son, who we referred to above as having his little brother in his arms, found
Mr. Ireland after the fight.
Mr. Ireland thought there was no prospect of escaping, and told the lad to remain with him and they would die together.
The little fellow refused, saying that his mother (whom he supposed dead.) had told him to carry his brother as far as he could, and he was determined to obey her.
Mr. Ireland then instructed him as to the route and other matters, starting the little fellow on his lonely and tedious journey over a desolate region of ninety miles, and in momentary danger of being murdered by bloodthirsty savages.
This heroic little fellow traveled 16 miles the first day, on foot, and 60 in carrying his little brother in his arms and on his back the entire distance, and living on raw corn and such victuals as he could find at the deserted houses along the route.
Mr. Ireland was so much encourage by the conduct of this little fellow that he also resolved to make an attempt to reach the nearest settlement.--On the route he overtook
Mrs. Eastlick and
Mrs Hurd, and their children, and all succeeded in reaching New Ulm in safety, after a tedious journey of 15 days, during which they worn compelled to hide in swamps to shade the Indians.
One of these ladies says that when she left
Mrs.
Everett's dead body was lying in the grass, her infant child was sleeping on parchment an old one standing by her side, and that strum after the heard the children crying, which was followed by reports of guns, and all was quiet.
It is supposed that the Indians returned and murdered the children.
Several days ago a declaiming of
Dane's company, under Corp'l Wolben, was sent up to Big Cottonwood, a distance of eight or twelve miles from New Uhu. They found and buried nine bodies, all of which were very much decomposed.
The first body was that of a man, shot white sitting behind a table eating.
A couple of balls had entered his body, and killed him instantly, as he had fallen forward.
Next was a women, tomahawked, and lying on a wagon track, and upon which there several bundles of graph.
At the side of a black, close by, to which she had probably been pitching grain was the body of a man, apparently fallen from the stack.
His head was cut off, and several holes noticed to his body.
In a field near by were the bodies of two men, apparently engaged at the time of their death in gathering wheat.
The rack of a wagon was near them, as if thrown off, and the tennis taken by the Indians.
The head of one was revered from the body, and both were pierced by bullets.
Judging from the clothing and shoes about this house the family included other children, but not traces of them could be found.
’
The tax Gaining War home to them.
The war tax is making the people of the
North feel that they are at war and paying heavily for it. The
Fall River (Mass
News says September harshened in a strange politics to disparaging for the ‘"American people,"’ It says:
‘
The excise law went into operation yesterday.
September 1st. It marks a in our national history.
Hitherto, the war which we have been waging for the
Union had been with nearly only a brilliant sentiment fancy, or more a heavy price in blood and life, thousand; have been compelled to offer at the devastating war the oblation of calling tears and heart aches, but the masses of the people have been exempted from the burdens.
They have bought and sold and toiled and got gains as usual.
Henceforward the ideal must give place to the practical and the inevitable.
Everybody will feel the cold touch of the iron fingers of war in the future.
We have been indulging in an expensive luxury, and as the payday has at last come round few will be able to escape the claims.
The demand will be presented in every conceivable form.
None are too rich and none are too poor to escape the burthen.
The humble laborer with no stocks, and with only half of a taxable income, will be compelled to contribute from his poverty.
The enhanced prices of all the luxuries, and many of the absolute necessaries of life, will swallow up laster than ever before his hard and limited . The manufacturer, the merchant, the financier and salaried officials, will be called upon to contribute of their profits for the public welfare — not indeed in proportion to their ability.
This is impossible under any existing system of Government.
Power always resides with wealth, and wealth is selfish in its aims, and the power which it creates will be used now as it always was before in similar instances, in transferring the costs of the war to those classes of the people who have no means of escaping the dilemma.
Patriotism is a word extensively mouthed, but its reality is oftener found among the ranks of the poor than in the circles of stock robbers and contractors.
The law which went into effect yesterday requires the taking out of licenses by numerous classes of tradesmen.
It imposes taxes upon manufactured articles, upon all browed since the first of August last, it levies a specific toll on carriages, pleasure boats, slaughtered animals, and an
ad valorem duty on interest on railroad bonds, dividends, official salaries, and receipts for advertisements; it levies a tax on incomes above $600, and upon all legacies, &c., and it requires a stamp duty from medicine and perfumery manufacturers.
The operation of the section requiring stamps on notes, checks, contracts, charter parties, and business papers generally, is suspended until the first of October.
All this is new to us — it will divert money from its accustomed channels, create the necessity in some instances of rigid economy; bear hard, possibly, for some time upon some mercantile and industrial interests; but the people, who now accept it as a stern necessity, will get used to it, and after a time, when our national integrity shall have been established, they will look upon the price of the great blessing as altogether inconsequential.
’
