From Washington

WASHINGTON, March 26.

Special to the Chicago Tribune.

Gen. Halleck’s commissioners, appointed to visit the Fort Donelson prisoners at Chicago, had reported the names of one thousand rebels as willing to take the oath of allegiance, but Schuyler Colfax protested against their release, on these or any other terms, and the President revoked the commission and prohibited the discharge of any more rebels.

World’s Dispatch.

An individual named Pollock reached here to-day, having come from Culpeper, near where the rebel army now lies.  He is known in Washington as reliable and intelligent.  Mr. Pollock states that in the vicinity from which he came there is a local insurrection among the white people who are pitter in opposition to the rule of Jeff. Davis.  The people, he says, feel that the rebel cause is hopelessly lost since the retreat from their stronghold at Manassas. – The rebel defeat at Winchester has also depressed them, though every effort has been made to conceal the bad news from the public and that portion of the army which was not engaged in the fight.  He doubts whether the rebels will have pluck to make a stand if they are attacked at Gordonsville.

Special to Herald.

A few days since the pickets along the lower Potomac and the Chesapeake Bay were drawn in by Gen. Hooker.  The rebel sympathizers in lower Maryland took this as an inclination that the U. S. forces were about to leave, and they immediately commenced to send their slaves to Virginia, for the rebel service.  This movement did not escape the vigilance of the General, who immediately ordered the arrest of some six or eight ringleaders, who are among the most prominent citizens of that section of Maryland.  They will be handed over to the authorities at Washington, with the evidence, which is said to be of the most conclusive character.

The following nominations by the President were referred to the Military Committee: W. B. Burnett, of N. Y., Carl Schurz, of Wis., M. S. Haskell, of Ind., J. W. Geary of Penn., Horace Waltner, of Ill., B. M. McVicker of Ill., J. T. Bradford, of Kentucky., J. D. Hutchitt, of Ky., A. J. Phillips, of Ohio, S. M. Hamilton, of Ill.

The amendments thus far made to the tax bill are not decisive, but merely the action of the committee of the whole – the House having finally to act on them.  It is believed Congress will, in conformity with the bill proposed by the Secretary of the Treasury, increase the tax on tobacco, whiskey and other luxuries.  The hasty clause taxing the stock of whisky now in the hands of dealers will probably be reconsidered.  The bill with this clause stricken out will be uniform and more acceptable.

WASHINGTON, March 27.

The causes which prevented a safe conveyance of mails and the collection of revenues, upon the route from Jefferson City to Tuscumbia, having been removed, the Postmaster General has ordered the restoration of full service thereon.

The bill to secure the officers and men actually employed in the Western Department, or Department of Missouri, their pay, bounty and pensions, is now a law.

News has been received at the Navy department, confirming the statement that the Merrimac is again ready for sea.  Lieut. Jeffries, of the Monitor, sent word to Capt. Dahlgren that he had no fears of the result of the next context.

The House of Representatives will strike off the tax on liquors manufactured previous to May 1^st.  The committee of ways and means have agreed to modify the taxes on leather made from hides imported from east of the Cape of Good Hope and on all damaged leather to half a cent per pound; all leather tanned in part or whole with oak to pay one cent.

The Republican to-day says it has positive information that the Democratic caucus night before last agreed to oppose the President’s emancipation plan and favor McClellan’s war policy, which is for a war short and desperate, and for our glorious Union as a whole.  This is emphatically Mr. Lincoln’s war policy.

As soon as the bill making appropriations for the navy comes up in the Senate, amendments will be adopted to complete the Stevens battery, and for the construction of a number of iron-clad vessels and heavy ordnance.

Gen. Abram Duryea [sic] has arrived here from Baltimore, and will act under orders of the military governor, Gen. Wadsworth.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Friday Morning, March 28, 1862, p. 1