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federate General Stuart, at the head of a body of cavalry, had made a brilliant dash round the right wing of the Federals, and, surprising part of their camp, from which he carried off considerable booty, returned in safety to the Confederate lines before Richmond. General Jackson-or 'Stonewall" Jackson, as he was generally called-had also unexpectedly issued from the Shenandoah valley, which opens out on Harper's Ferry, and driven before him the Federal General Banks on the Potomac, causing the utmost alarm for the safety of Washington. General McDowell, who was hastening at the head of a strong force to relieve McClellan, was immediately recalled to assist in the defence of the capital, which for some days was believed to be, and actually was, in imminent danger.

In a report of the Confederate Secretary of State for War, the events of the campaign in Virginia were thus described::

"During these operations, the grand army of McClellan, inveigled by the skill of General J. E. Johnstone to settle down on the swamps of the Chickahominy to the prudent occupation of digging trenches and earthworks, was, on the first favourable opportunity, stricken with marked success in the severe engagement of the Seven Pines. Unfortunately, before his guidance had consummated victory, General Johnstone was wounded and disabled. Our army was then transferred to that consummate commander, Gen. R. E. Lee. Soon, thereafter, summoning to his aid General Jackson, the prestige of whose name and exploits sufficed for the

security of the valley, he, in pursuance of a plan, as admirably conceived as on his part boldly executed, assailed McClellan in flank and rear, and by a series of bloody victories, drove from their laboured defences his grand army. Shattered and dismayed, it cowered for protection under cover of its gunboats, there to swelter and waste beneath the oppressive sun and pestilent malaria of a shadeless plain on the banks of the Lower James."

McClellan's great army of the Potomac, from which such brilliant results had been expected, was indeed in a critical and humiliating position. It had been. defeated and driven back, and might at any moment be surrounded on the land side by the united forces of the Confederates, and compelled, if not to surrender, to fight a desperate battle under most discouraging circumstances. Its chief hope of safety lay in the Federal fleet, which protected it on the James River side. It was, therefore, necessary to abandon the expedition, and General McClellan embarked all that remained of his forces on board the fleet and sailed for Acquia Creek, on the right bank of the Potomac, not far from Fredericksburg, intending to land there or at Alexandria, which is higher up the river and nearer Washington.

To cover this movement and divert the attention of the enemy, the Federal General Pope had advanced beyond the Rappahannock to the Rapidan; and the Confederate General Lee pushed forward to meet him. The two armies came into collision at a place called Cedar Mountain, north of the Rapidan, where a

bloody but indecisive battle was fought on the 9th of August. On the 24th, General "Stonewall" Jackson, leaving the Confederate lines south of the Rappahannock, moved rapidly westward, and, crossing the Blue Ridge Mountains, threw himself between General Pope's rear and Washington. General Stuart, with his cavalry, passed a second time to the rear of the Federals, and actually captured the baggages of General Pope, who, outmanœuvred and almost surrounded, fell back upon the Potomac. During his retreat he was frequently attacked, and a desperate struggle took place at Bull's Run, the very spot which had been so disastrous to the Federal arms last year. At last General Pope's army reached Centreville and the strongly-defended lines of Washington, before which the Confederates were compelled to halt; but General Lee, hurrying up the river, crossed the Potomac into Maryland, in hopes of inducing the inhabitants to rise en masse and join him. In this he was disappointed, and General McClellan, who, in the meantime, had landed his beaten army at Acquia Creek, was summoned in all haste to Washington, where he was ordered to march to the northward, and drive the Confederates out of Maryland. General Lee gave him battle at a place on the Potomac called Antietam, and both sides claimed the victory. Lee, however, then recrossed the Potomac, but the Federal garrison at Harper's Ferry, to the number of 12,000 men, surrendered to the Confederates, with an immense amount of artillery and stores. General McClellan did not think VOL. CIV.

it prudent to follow General Lee, and for some time remained inactive, until he again began to advance towards Richmond, following the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

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In the meantime General Halleck had been appointed Commander-in-Chief, and in the month of November, by the authority of the President, he superseded General McClellan, and General Burnside was appointed to succeed him. He led the army to the banks of the Rappahannock, and after some delay, caused by the want of pontoons, on the 11th of December he crossed the river near Fredericksburg and took up his position between the town and the stronglyfortified lines of the Confederates to the south. Two days afterwards, the Federals made desperate attack on the position of the enemy, which they were unable to carry, and after a severe and gallant struggle, in which they suffered enormous loss, they were compelled to abandon the attempt. It was clear that the Confederates were in such strength that an advance upon Richmond by the Federals was impossible, and as winter had now set in, the only course left open to them was to retreat. On the night of the 25th, in the midst of a tremendous storm of rain, General Burnside succeeded in withdrawing his troops across the river, undisturbed by the enemy, and retired upon Washington.

This was the end of the campaign during the present year. The positions of the main armies of the North and the South were nearly the same as they had been eighteen months before. But [Q]

the balance of gain, upon the whole, was on the side of the Confederates. They had, indeed, lost New Orleans-a heavy and unlooked-for blow-but they had arrested and rolled back the tide of Northern invasion in Virginia, and inflicted several severe defeats upon the Federals. After two years' fighting, the North had not gained an inch of ground from the South in that direction, and Richmond was quite as safe as Washington. This was in itself a signal triumph, for if the Federals did not advance they failed. They were the aggressive and attacking party, and for the success of their policy conquest was necessary. The Confederates, on the other hand, acted on the defensive, and baffled their adversaries by keeping them at bay. The hopelessness of the attempt to bring back the Union by force of arms was clear to all who were capable of forming a dispassionate judgment; but pride, obstinacy, and lust of empire still impelled the North to continue the desolating strife. We fear that torrents of blood will yet be shed before the termination of the Civil War, of which the civilized world is ashamed and sick. Let us now turn to other incidents of this melancholy year.

In February the Confederate States established a permanent Government-that which had hitherto existed being only provisional--and Mr. Jefferson Davis, who was elected President, delivered at Richmond, on the 22nd of that month, an inaugural address in which he said,

"It is with mingled feelings of humility and pride that I appear to take, in the presence of the people, and before high

Heaven, the oath prescribed as a qualification for the exalted station to which the unanimous voice of the people has called me. Deeply sensible of all that is implied by this manifestation of the people's confidence, I am yet more profoundly impressed by the vast responsibility of the office, and humbly feel my own unworthiness. . .

"The first year in our history has been the most eventful in the annals of this continent. A new Government has been established, and its machinery put in operation over an area exceeding 700,000 square miles. The great principles upon which we have been willing to hazard everything that is dear to man have made conquests for us which could never have been achieved by the sword. Our Confederacy has grown from six to thirteen States; and Maryland, already united to us by hallowed memories and material interests, will, I believe, when able to speak with unstifled voice, connect her destiny with the South. Our people have rallied with unexampled unanimity to the support of the great principles of constitutional government, with firm resolve to perpetuate by arms the rights which they could not peacefully secure. A million of men, it is estimated, are now standing in hostile array and waging war along a frontier of thousands of miles. Battles have been fought, sieges have been conducted, and, although the contest is not ended, and the tide for the moment is against us, the final result in our favour is not doubtful.

have incurred, a debt which, in their efforts to subjugate us, has already attained such fearful dimensions as will subject them to burdens which must continue to oppress them for generations to

come.

"We, too, have had our trials and difficulties. That we are to escape them in future is not to be hoped. It was to be expected when we entered upon this war that it would expose our people to sacrifices, and cost them much both of money and blood. But we knew the value of the object for which we struggled, and understood the nature of the war in which we were engaged. Nothing could be so bad as failure, and any sacrifice would be cheap as the price of success in such

a contest.

"But the picture has its lights as well as its shadows. This great strife has awakened in the people the highest emotions and qualities of the human soul. It is cultivating feelings of patriotism, virtue, and courage. Instances of self-sacrifice and of generous devotion to the noble cause for which we are contending are rife throughout the land. Never has a people evinced a inore determined spirit than that now animating men, women, and children in every part of our country. Upon the first call men fly to arms, and wives and mothers send their husbands and sons to battle without a murmur of regret.

"It is a satisfaction that we have maintained the war by our unaided exertions. We have neither asked nor received any assistance from any quarter. Yet the interest involved is not wholly our own. The world at large is concerned in opening our markets

to its commerce. When the independence of the Confederate States is recognized by the nations of the earth, and we are free to follow our interests and inclinations by cultivating foreign trade, the Southern States will offer to manufacturing nations the most favourable markets which ever invited their commerce. Cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, provisions, timber, and naval stores will furnish attractive exchanges. Nor would the constancy of these supplies be likely to be disturbed by war. Our confederate strength will be too great to tempt aggression; and never was there a people whose interests and principles committed them so fully to a peaceful policy as those of the Confederate States. By the character of their productions they are too deeply interested in foreign commerce wantonly to disturb it. War of conquest they cannot wage, because the constitution of their Confederacy admits of no coerced association. Civil war there cannot be between States held together by their volition only. This rule of voluntary association, which cannot fail to be conservative, by securing just and impartial government at home, does not diminish the security of the obligations by which the Confederate States may be bound to foreign nations. In proof of this it is to be remembered that, at the first moment of asserting their right of secession, these States proposed a settlement, on the basis of a common liability, for the obligations of the general Government.

"Fellow-citizens, after the struggles of ages had consecrated the

right of the Englishman to constitutional representative government, our colonial ancestors were forced to vindicate that birthright by an appeal to arms. Success crowned their efforts, and they provided for their posterity a peaceful remedy against future aggression.

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The tyranny of an unbridled majority, the most odious and least responsible form of despotism, has denied us both the right and the remedy. Therefore we are in arms to renew such sacrifices as our fathers made to the holy cause of constitutional liberty. At the darkest hour of our struggle the provisional gives place to the permanent Government. After a series of successes and victories which covered our arms with glory, we have recently met with serious disasters. But in the heart of a people resolved to be free, these disasters tend but to stimulate to increased resistance.

"To show ourselves worthy of the inheritance bequeathed to us by the patriots of the Revolution, we must emulate that heroic devotion which made reverse to them but the crucible in which their patriotism was refined.

With confidence in the wisdom and virtue of those who will share with me the responsibility and aid me in the conduct of public affairs-securely relying on the patriotism and courage of the people, of which the present war has furnished so many examples, I deeply feel the weight of the responsibilities I now, with unaffected diffidence, am about to assume; and, fully realizing the inadequacy of human power to guide and to sustain, my hope is reverently fixed on Him whose

It became necessary for the North to provide new means for furnishing supplies to carry on the war; and a Tax Bill was brought forward in Congress, which, on the 8th of April, was passed in the House of Representatives by a majority of 125 to 13. At the close of the debate, Mr. Stephens, of Pennsylvania, said, in the course of a speech he made upon the question:

"I will assume that every loyal man admits the necessity of everything required to extinguish this wicked rebellion. To do this requires armies and navies; to sustain them money is absolutely necessary, for the soldiers of the Republic must not go unpaid, whatever it may cost the civilian. Money can only be had through loans, and loans cannot be had unless at the same time means be provided for paying punctually the interest. This nation must never repudiate her debts. This brings us to the direct question-how much must be annually raised to pay such interest? If the war was to end now, or within 60 days, we could tell very nearly. I suppose our debt on the 1st day of July next will not be less than 800 millions. When, some time since, I had occasion to address the House on the Treasury Note Bill, I stated our daily expenses at two