(Tribune’s Dispatch.)
NEW YORK, March 15. – The President nominated yesterday for
Brigadier General, John Craig, also Robert C. Buchanan to be Inspector General.
The War Department has authorized Gen. Halleck to [supersede]
Major General Grant unless he should ask to be relieved, on account of bad conduct
at Fort Donelson and elsewhere.
Secretary Fox, who is in Washington, reports the Merrimac
badly injured in the two days fight. She
had a hole bored in her hull by the Monitor.
She was leaking very badly when she put back. The Cumberland’s broadside in the first fight
injured her so badly that she could not attack the Monitor or Roanoke, all
though they were both aground. He thinks
that the Monitor, now that she is afloat, can handle the Merrimac. She is slow and unwieldy. He considers it utterly impossible for the
Merrimac to go to sea, as she would immediately founder in an ordinary gale.
The Merrimac’s shot was bunked away by a ball from an 11-inch
on the Minnesota.
Capt. [Buchanan] was wounded by a shot from a rifle-man on
board the Cumberland, the ball going through his thigh.
Mr. Fox says the crew of the Minnesota as well as that of
the Monitor, which to see the Merrimac come out again, but it is not likely
that they will be gratified.
Commodore Stevens of the steam battery has obtained
permission from the Secretary of War to make use of the 15 inch gun at Fortress
Monroe, to be placed upon his steam propeller Nangantuck, to be used in the
defence of New York harbor, and to attack the Merrimac, in the event of her
appearance.
The Herald’s Washington dispatch says Gen. McClellan
reviewed a division of the army in the vicinity of Manassas this p. m., and as
he reviewed the lines he was greeted by the most vociferous cheers and
enthusiasm.
A man this evening from a village on the Orange and
Alexandria Railroad, 37 miles from Goodysville came into the camp of the Ira
Harris cavalry. – He states that there were forty thousand rebels troops in
town when he left and that they continued to come in and hurried on under in
impression that the Union army was in pursuit of them. Gen. Johnson and other rebel officers were
dining when he left.
He states that the road from Rappahannock to Manassas is
strewed with muskets, knapsacks, haversacks, blankets, and provisions flung
away in the retreat and that numbers of soldiers lay fainting and exhausted by
the roadside.
The Times’ Washington dispatch says the steamer Achilles,
while passing the rebel batteries at Acquia Creek last night, was fired at six times,
indicating that there are some rebels yet lounging on the Potomac. None of the shots took effect.
Gen. Hooker was of opinion at nine o’clock, to-day, that the
rebels had not abandoned Fredericksburgh.
(Herald’s Special.)
WASHINGTON, March 17. – The relatives of Capt. Franklin
Buchanan, who commanded the rebel iron clad steamer Merrimac at the late fight,
have written to his relatives in this city from Baltimore, that he is dead, and
his body is to be brought to the old homestead on the Eastern shore of Maryland
for interment.
A movement is on foot relative to the impeachment of all
those judges who have in any form, shape, or manner aided in the interests of
secession. A member of Congress has now in
his desk a resolution, which he will offer at the first opportune moment to
instruct the Committee on the Judiciary to inquire into this matter of general
impeachment, and report at an early date by bill or otherwise.
(Tribune
correspondence.)
Delegates from a great number of business interests are
here, suggesting a modification of the tax bill in [its favor]. Changes have already been made in committee
in making the tax specific instead of ad valorem. To newspapers, making the advertisement tax three instead of
five per cent, and on net receipts instead of gross. Tobacconists, reducing it on leaf and stem,
and raising it on the manufactured. The
tax proposed on umbrellas and parasols a change from specific to five per cent.
ad valorem. Omnibuses, entire freedom
from the tax on passengers. It was shown
that it would be fatal to them in competition with the horse railroads. The tax has also been stricken off from the
manufactures of flour. This was done by
a delegation of the Rochester millers, who showed that it would be fatal to
their business. All along the line
afflicted by the reciprocity treaty, the tax would enable the Canadian millers
to undersell us in our own markets.
Nomination of Daniel E. Sickles and Haller Gunn of New
Hampshire were made.
Gen. Lockwood’s nomination is suspended.
The limits of the Department to which Gen. Hunter has been
appointed, has again been incorrectly stated.
It [may] not be improper to say that it comprises the States of South
Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Gen.
Sherman will be retained in the Department under Gen. Hunter. Also. Capt. W. [H. Peck] of the 11th
Infantry, formerly of Chicago, Illinois.
To-day Senator Sumner will introduce a bill repealing an act
originally passed in 1812, providing that [henceforth] no person by reason of
color shall be disqualified from employment in carrying the mails.
Hon. Richard Fanchette, of the 18th N. Y. district, has
obtained the signatures of about 150 Senators and Representatives to a memorial
to Congress, asking that better rations be served out to the army.
(Special to Post.)
WASHINGTON, March 28 – the Naval committee formally voted in
favor of the appropriation sufficient to complete the Stevens’ battery and
fifteen million dollars for the construction of iron clad steamers.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye,
Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 22, 1862, p. 4
