Sunday, February 15, 2009

Late Southern News

The Richmond Examiner’s Charleston correspondent, under date of the 30th ult., writes as follows:

Since the drawn battle between the Monitor and Virginia, we have made up our minds that the strength of the batteries of Fort Sumter will, within the next three months, be tested by half a score of iron-sheathed monsters. We are now doing something to get ready fro them. The gunboat fever, just now so universal among the unconquerable women of the South, seems to have awakened the Navy Department from its torpor. What is now being done at the eleventh hour, by the orders of the government, should have been done twelve months ago. Since the cumbersome floating battery, intended for the reduction of Fort Sumter, was launched, our ship carpenters, as far as war vessels are concerned, have been absolutely idle, though their services could at any have been secured by the Confederacy. But the past is past, and we must all put our shoulders to the wheel for the future.

The Norfolk Day book of the 4th inst. has the following interesting item, which may be taken for what is worth:

We have a pretty strong hint that pilots acquainted with the various harbors along the Northern seaboard will speedily be in great demand, and that their services will be handsomely remunerated. It is unnecessary for us of course to say more than this, as those, interested will easily find out where to apply for further information. As the weather is getting warm, possibly some of our Southern friends intend to get up a few pic-nic excursions to a little colder climate, and it may be that they need the services of the above pilots.

The Richmond Examiner says:

The Hon. William M. Gwin, of California, who was arrested in New York some months ago and carried to Washington by Lincoln’s minions, but afterwards released, also arrive in this city yesterday, and is stopping at the Spottswood Hotel. Dr. Gwin came from Maryland by the underground railroad. He states that the Yankees intend exhausting every means to crush out the so-called “rebellion” by the first of May. The number of mechanics in the workshops of the North has been doubled, and they are now working day and night turning out iron for gunboats, as the north believes them to be their only salvation.

The same paper says:

It is suggested that Congress will take measures to check the evils which are becoming quite perceptible from the large issue of Treasury notes, and will provide adequate means for absorbing the currency. We learn that the expenditures of the Government are at the rate of two or three millions a day, and that there is a weekly addition of that sum to the currency. We here it recommended that Congress should make all future issues of Treasury notes bear interest.

All the Generals of our army of the Mississippi are now at Corinth, including Beauregard, Sidney Johnson [sic], Bragg, Polk, Crittenden, Gladden, Ruggles, Carroll, and Kirby Smith. Gen. Jackson, of Georgia is in command at Corinth.

The Richmond Examiner of April 4 contains a leading article urging the execution of the full sentence of the law upon several persons convicted of counterfeiting rebel treasury notes. – That penalty, says the examiner, is hanging by the neck until they are dead.

The Richmond Dispatch, of the 31st, announces that it is the purpose of the Provost Marshal to interpose and regulate the prices of provisions, &c., in the markets of Richmond.

– Published in the Burlington Daily Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Thursday, April 17, 1862 & the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 19, 1862

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