From Yorktown

WASHINGTON, May 6.

Prisoners Captured at Yorktown converse freely respecting the war, except they refuse to give information of the strength of Johnston’s army.

Capt. Lee, one of their number, declares that the South will continue to fight to the last; that their reverse have not disheartened them; they expect to be driven out of Virginia and all the border States, and from their seaport towns; but that when we meet them in the interior, man for man, they will show us that they are unconquerable.

This morning, Maj. Davis, of the Harris Light Cavalry, established his headquarters in the Farmer’s Bank, in Fredericksburg, as Provost Marshal of the city.  Hoisting the stars and stripes permanently, for the first time in the town since the rebellion.

Our pickets are thrown out beyond this city, and we are in quiet possession of the entire place.  Yesterday a large among of flour, corn, rice, hospital and other stores, ammunition, &c., were discovered and seized, together with several stand of arms.

President Buchanan’s postmaster was yesterday arrested in the post-office, and will be held in custody until an equivalent for the money plundered from the post-office department is disgorged.

Times Dispatch.

You were informed last night that Napoleon Seerman, and Austrian lately on Gen. Fremont’s staff, had been confirmed by the Senate as a Brigadier General.  This fact has astounded the knowing ones of Washington, and especially the foreign diplomatic corps.  Count Mercier avers that when he was with the French embassy at Madrid, he knew Seerman as a detective adventurer and imposter at the Court.

Tribune’s Correspondence.

It is known here, that a secret organization exists ad Dubuque, Iowa, to resist the collection of federal taxes.  The ringleaders of this movement are known to the Government, and its eye is upon them.

Secessionists in Fredericksburg, says the Capital of the Southern Confederacy has been temporarily removed to Danville, N. C.

The Tribune learns that David Forbes, a prominent citizen of Falmouth, was yesterday arrested as a spy.  The evidence is said to be very strong against him.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, May 8, 1862, p. 1

From Washington

WASHINGTON, April 30.

The joint committee on the conduct of the war made a lengthy report regarding the treatment by the rebels at Manassas of the remains of the officers and soldiers killed there.  They say the facts disclosed are of a painful, repulsive and shocking character; that the rebels have crowned this rebellion by perpetration of deeds scarcely known even to savage warfare.  Investigations have established this beyond controversy.  The witnesses called before us are men of undoubted veracity and character.  Some of them occupy high positions in the army and some of them high positions in civil life: differing in political sentiments, their evidence proves a remarkable concurrence of opinion and judgment.  Our own people and foreign nations must, with one accord, (however they have hesitated heretofore,) consign to lasting odium the authors of crimes which, in all their details, exceed the worst excesses of the Sepoys in India.  The outrages on the dead will revive the recollections of the cruelties to which savage tribes subject their prisoners.  They were buried, in many cases, naked, with their faces downward; they were left to decay in the open air, their bones being carried off as trophies – sometimes, as the testimony proves, to be used as personal adornments; and one witness deliberately avows that the head of one of our most gallant officers was cut off by a secessionist to be used as a drinking cup on the occasion of his marriage.

Wm. Allen Bryant, of Va., nephew of Gov. James Barber, has been appointed chief of the bureau of inspection of the post office department.

The vote in the Senate refusing, by four majority, to refer the subject of the confiscation of rebel property to a select committee, was regarded as a test vote between the friends and opponents of the measure, and a triumph of the former.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Friday Morning, May 2, 1862, p. 1

From Washington

WASHINGTON, April 29.

A dispatch received from Gen. Halleck says:  “It is the unanimous opinion that Gen. Sherman saved the fortune of the 6th, and contributed largely to the victory of the 7th.  He was in the thickest of the fight, had three horses shot, and was himself wounded twice.  I respectfully ask that he be made Major General of volunteers.”

Lieut. Robinson is ordered to the command of the battery of E. A. Stevens, commonly, but erroneously called the Naugatuck, now at fort Monroe.

The Secretary of the Treasury is now prepared to pay all indebtedness of a date prior to the 1st of Feb’y, in cash, of the month of Feb’y of 40 per cent in cash, of subsequent date 30 percent cash.

The emancipation commissioners met to-day.  Several petitions were filed, and during the morning thirty or forty persons waited on the board for information regarding the mode of procedure.

Tribune’s Dispatch.

WASHINGTON, April 29.

The War Department has issued an order for supplies of arms and clothing for the loyal blacks to be enrolled in Gen. Hunter’s division.

WASHINGTON, April 30.

Brig. Gen. W. T. Sherman in accordance with the recommendation of Gen. Halleck has been nominated for a Major General.

A letter received here from a gentleman high in authority in Tennessee, contains the following:  “Say to the P. M. General that we are succeeding beyond our most sanguine expectations.  As soon as the rebel army is driven beyond the limits of Tennessee the state will stand for the Union by an overwhelming majority.  I hope the government will be impressed with the absolute necessity of the army entering East Tennessee.  They are murdering and plundering our people by thousands.  Their acts of inhumanity and barbarity are without parallel.”  The letter concludes:  “Great God!  Is there no relief for that people?”

The Post Office department has re-opened the following offices in Tennessee: Murfreesboro, Springfield and Franklin.  If the administration should not in all respects meet the expectations of the country, the failure will not be for the want of volunteer advice on war, financial and slavery questions.  Numerous letters proffering it, being constantly received from all parts of the United States, and even foreign lands.

It is not probable that smuggling goods into Virginia from the Chesapeake bay and adjacent waters, will much longer be profitable speculations.  The numerous recent captures show several regulations are strictly enforced.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, May 1, 1862, p. 1

Persons who are distrustful of . . .

. . . Uncle Sam’s deputy postmasters and route agents, sometimes cut bills in two and forward half at a time, waiting to hear of the receipt of the first before sending the second half.  This, it seems to us, is doubling the risk, as if either half is lost the whole amount is lost.  Persons sending us money by mail will therefore please not cut bills.  We will take the whole risk in one letter.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 1, 1862, p. 2

A post office clerk named Charles Gay . . .

. . . at Montmorenci, Mich., is under arrest and will doubtless be sent to the State Penitentiary, for opening a young lady’s letter and writing a page of obscenity in it.  The Post Office Department takes notice only of the former offense, but the latter makes the penalty all the more deserved.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 8, 1862, p. 2

Re-admitted to Mails

WASHINGTON, April 10. – The Freeman’s Journal is, by order of the Post Office Department, re-admitted to the mails from this week.

– Published in the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 12, 1862, p. 3