The appointment of General Fremont to the command of . . .

. . . a Military District is alluded to in the following language by the Frankfort, Ky., Commonwealth:

We do not know how far West the division of the Potomac extends – probably to the Blue Ridge, and includes a greater part of Virginia, the Carolinas and Florida and Georgia.  If so, Fremont’s command is rather a small mountainous district – too hilly for him to show much of his tom-foolery, in the shape of splendid carriages, bands of music, and a menagerie of puffers, painters, reporters, &c., &c.  The North and South Knoxville line will cross very near to Maysville, and will throw into Fremont’s command the Cumberland Gap, the Sandy Valley, and Eastern [sic] Virginia.  Among these mountain men, the Major General, if he has any tact at all, must adapt himself to mountain manners, as well as mountain passes, and if he only had Kit Carson with him he might get along pretty well.

We suppose his appointment was something like Cameron’s appointment to Russia – a sort of politico-State necessity which the President could not entirely disregard; and deemed it better to have the discontented officer off in the woods than to keep in stirring up murmurs and making party combinations at Washington.  We wish, however, he could have found some other place for him – Arizonia [sic], for instance, but we can’t have all things as we wish.  We take comfort in another thought, and that is; that if the rebel main army does not try to force its way through Kentucky by the Cumberland Gap or Prestonsburg, but leaves those points to be defended by Humphrey Marshal and John S. Williams, Fremont can hold his own against them, and is as good a man as either of them, either in patriotism or soldiership.

Now when our seceshers are throwing up their camps over Fremont’s appointment, pretending all the time to be horrified that Lincoln should have done this thing, we beg them to stay their grief, “for this is our funeral,” and none of their business.  We’ll do the best we can with it, and the army will see to it that the war is carried on solely for the union, the Constitution and the Enforcemnt of the Laws.  And it may turn out after all, that all the bad that was in Fremont has been evacuated by the President’s order to him in Missouri to attend to his own duties and let the niggers alone, and hereafter he may turn out better than many expect.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 22, 1862, p. 3

From Kentucky and Tennessee

LOUISVILLE, Ky., March 11. – Humphrey Marshall is at Glaidsville, eight miles from the Kentucky line, near Pounding Gap, which is occupied by a detachment of the forces belonging to Col. Drail’s regiment.  Marshal first attempted to conciliate the people of that section, but since his defeat they have become scornful and overbearing.

Tennessee advices say that people of Nashville destroyed on Sunday night a large quantity of confederate stores to prevent them from falling into the hands of the rebel troops under Gen. A. Sydney Johnston [sic], who were in full retreat for Memphis.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 15, 1862, p. 3

Specials to the New York Papers

(Tribune Correspondence.)

WASHINGTON, Feb. 16. – Gen. Sanders resignation has not been received here, and people who know his impatience for a fight pray it may not come.

Little has been said of the prize money earned by the crews of our blockading vessels, but the amount cannot be small.  The share due to Commander Alden, of the South Carolina, which made so many captures in the Gulf, is one hundred thousand dollars.  Nineteen times that sum is to be divided among his officers and men.

Gen. Grant was nominated as a Major-General to-day.  The Senate, which has since had no Executive Session, will not confirm him until the official reports are received.

The House Committee on Territories will soon report a bill organizing Arizona as a free Territory.  The Wilmot Proviso will be a part of the bill.

Mr. S. A. Allen has been appointed an agent to accompany our forces into Tennessee to take charge of the cotton crop in behalf of the Government.

(Times’ dispatch.)

Andy Johnson will probably proceed to Nashville as soon as Gen. Buell’s army takes possession of that city, and assist in organizing a Provisional Government for Tennessee.  The people there are panting for freedom, and a resumption of their connection with the union.  They will probably send a full delegation of loyal men to Congress by the last of March.

The President to-day nominated Col. Garfield of Ohio, as Brigadier General in compliment for his thrashing Humphrey Marshall.

The War Department has proofs, which is considered conclusive, that young Walworth is a spy.

(World’s Correspondence.)

WASHINGTON, Feb. 19. – The recent news from Europe touching the determination of the allied powers to put Hapsburg as a ruler over Mexico, would thus create a monarchy on our borders, is exciting profound emotion here.  The fact that some such scheme was on the table has been in the possession of the Department for some time past and it will be found that the dispatches have been already sent to our Ministers at London, Paris and Madrid protesting energetically against any such project.

(Tribune Correspondence.)

The Navy Department will issue proposals to-morrow for building a number of steam men-of-war of various kinds.  The Department will withhold for the present the proposals for iron-clad steamers.  The construction of gunboats will be urgently pressed.

(World’s Dispatch)

Among other things presented to the House yesterday was the memorial of the American Geographical and Statistical Society asking the intercession of Congress in reference to the ship canal connected the river St. Lawrence and all the great Lakes on the boundary with the Atlantic ocean in the Bay of New York., and any future adjustment of the commercial relations between the United states and Great Britain.

(Tribune’s Dispatch.)

In well informed circles here it is positively asserted that Gen. Fremont has been completely vindicated of all the charges brought against his conduct of the war in Missouri, by the vote of the joint Committee of Investigation.  A highly important command is indicated for him in the far West.

(Herald’s Dispatch.)

A disposition has been manifested in the Senate to pass over most of the nominations for Brigadier Generals for the present and let the nominees win their stars by gallantry and efficiency in the field before they are confirmed.

A broad line of distinction has been drawn in the Senate between officers who lounge about the hotels or dawdle in drawing rooms, and those who devote their attention to the improvement of the efficiency of their command or are in active duties in the field.  Whenever these come up, the nomination of one against whom or in whose favor there is nothing particularly to be said by common consent, it is passed over to await the future conduct of the candidate and let him prove his merit by his deeds.

NEW YORK. Feb. 20. – A special states that Senator Wade and Andrew Johnson had an interview with Gen. McClellan yesterday and urged the necessity of action with the army on the Potomac as well as in the West.

The Senate will take up the Mexican treaty in Executive Session.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 22, 1862, p. 3

From Kentucky

LOUISVILLE, March 11.

Humphrey Marshall is at Gladesville, 8 miles from the Kentucky line, near Founding gap, with the new scattered, demoralized forces belonging to Col. Williams’ regiment.  Marshall first attempted to console the people of that region, but since his defeat he has become irritable and overbearing.

Tennessee advices say that the citizens of Shelbyville, Bedford county, burned on Sunday night a large quantity of confederate stores to prevent their falling into the hands of the rebel troops under General A. Sidney Johnston, who were in full retreat from Murfreesboro.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, March 13, 1862, p. 2

A soldier in the rebel army . . .

. . .  writing home to a friend says: –

“I well remember your enthusiastic shouts when the Manassas victory was won, but did you ever dream for a moment that it was our last grand victory!  God forbid, and yet it looks so.  A Zollicoffer has fallen; a Marshall, has had a retreat; Johnson as fallen back; Hardin is mum; Buckner has gone to the sunny South, and we, with Hindman, are loafing around the camp and Barren county, stealing everything that we can lay our hands upon.”

That soldier, if living, might now add a postscript of still more goomy aspect, and include in it Johnson’s and Buckner’s present condition.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Tuesday Morning, February 18, 1862, p. 2