as ter go to Reesh River!" That was doing penance for foolishness with a vengeance. INDIANA has long enjoyed the reputation of being the State in which restive partners under the matrimonial yoke can more easily become twain than in any other part of the Republic. She must now yield the palm to Oregon, where the outgivings of "an uneasy civilization" are less trammeled by law, usage, and custom than elsewhere; all of which may be seen in the following "decree of divorce" granted by an indulgent spouse to her beloved husband, at Umatilla, Oregon : "Know all men by these presents, that I hereby give, grant, and bequeath unto my beloved husband, Proudhon St. Felix, a full and free divorce from the bonds of matrimony, granting and bequeathing unto him, my beloved husband, all the happiness he can get. Witness my hand and seal this 8th day of September, A.D. 1865. This di- "MARY ST. + FELIX." The above is a veritable document. JAMES SMITHERS, ESQ., is our particular friend. We always loved him, and we shall do so to the end of life. "A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind." His wife governs him after the Dobbs style of female dominion; and he meekly bows his head to the yoke, and acknowledges the justice of his destiny. Blessed man! His usual song, when at work, is thundered out with evident unction as follows: "O stand the storm, It won't be long, We'll anchor by-and-by!" We regret to say that Smithers has a distressing peculiarity in his disposition. He is superstitious to the last degree. He listened to ghost stories when he was a comparative infant, and isn't well of it yet. He is a believer in spiritual existences, and believes also that they walk the earth. He was never known to visit a cemetery after night, and was never heard to speak of apparitions except in a low, tremulous, timid voice. WHEN a certain town in Iowa was in its infancy the inhabitants thereof had some peculiar ways of testifying their likes and dislikes. For instance, Two or three weeks ago Smithers attended a one man once thought he had cause for complaint Temperance or some other sort of meeting at one against another, so taking a "shooting iron" in his of the restaurants in town; and we are pained to hand he started forth in quest of satisfaction. Ar- add that he remained until a late hour. He started riving at the hotel of his enemy, he found him for home in a condition of unusual exhilaration. quietly seated in his own room, enjoying himself He walked up Walnut Street with an excited step, over rum-and-water. Without ado the intruder and ever and anon, despite his apparent cheerfulcommenced firing, but none of the shots took effect. ness, he gloomily anticipated a reverse of fortune His target, without being the least dismayed, cool- when he should arrive at home. He saw Waterloo ly picked up an umbrella from the floor, and throw-in the distance; but driving back the fears which ing it at him, exclaimed, "Go 'way now! you sha'n't be shooting around here!" IN Central New York there lived a man who was a stanch adherent to old-time customs, and very suspicious of modern improvements. Railroads he particularly denounced, prophesying that they would never come into general use; and for years he carried his aversion so far as not to look upon a train of cars. But one day a friend induced him to accompany him to a railway-station, in order to examine a locomotive, with a view to softening his prejudice. His examination was a cynical one, and while he yet stood looking at the train, it started up, and after going a few rods returned to its former position. "There! there!" said the man. "I don't want to see any more! It's just as I knew it would be! The thing's just as likely to go one way as another. It's all a humbug, I tell you-all a humbug!” And the poor man lived and died in the same faith. I SAID one day to Charley Wipe, the most inveterate joker in our neighborhood: "Did you ever get the worst of it in your many and serious encounters?" "Well," said he, "I did get 'boxed up' once rather neatly." "How ?" "I don't mind telling you. You know what an awfully rough voice Sid Tole has got. Well, one day I was at work hoeing corn with three or four of the boys, and Sid came by. "Boys, I sung out, here comes a man with the voice of a jackass.' were beginning to neutralize the effects of the res- We'll anchor by-and-by!" "I say, Sally dear!" called out the poor gentleman so soon as he had recovered his voice. He expected his wife to answer, but no answer came. The apparition, with its great, staring, superhuman eyes, looked down on him from its lofty height, and Smithers imagined that it was approaching him. "I say, Sally! oh, dear Sally! come here!" Every thing was still. Not a mouse stirred. But the frightened man still fancied that the giant spectre was nearing him, and he fancied, too, that he could feel its hot breath moving through his hair and over his face. It was horrible! He tried to climb from his knees, but he hadn't the ability to move. All that he could do was to keep his position, wring his bands in anguish, call upon the name of his beloved wife, and direct his stony and fascinated gaze to the awful countenance of the spectre. At twelve o'clock that night a well-known citizen of this place, while passing the residence of Mr. Smithers, was startled by cries, wails, prayers, entreaties, and objurgations of all descriptions. "Ob, Mr. Ghost! please don't! Keep away! I say, Sally! for mercy's sake, come here! Oh, keep away! I'll reform! I won't stay out of nights any more! Murder! mercy! Mercy!" I'll stand the storm, It won't be long The well-known citizen rushed into the house, hastened up stairs in the direction of the terrific noises, and found poor Smithers lying flat on his back near the door, apparently in the last struggles of dissolving nature. He was holding his arms up perpendicularly from his body, and was kicking with awful energy against some imaginary object. "Smithers! what on earth is the matter?" exclaimed the citizen, placing the poor man in a sitting posture, and trying to console him in his affliction. "There! there! there!" hissed Smithers, pointing to the terrible apparition, and catching his breath with spasmodic quickness. The citizen went up to the spectre-a little startled himself, bythe-way. He laughed outright when he discovered that the apparition consisted of several pieces of furniture piled on each other, encircled by drapery, and topped by one of those horrible masks which you may see at the shops. Due explanations were given. Smithers was brought fully to life; but he didn't see his wife until next day. She had absconded for the night. Smithers has reformed. He doesn't stay out late of nights. But in view of the spectral trick which his wife played on him he still sings: "I'll stand the storm, It won't be long, We'll anchor by-and-by!" OLD Dr. Joe H-, of Mansfield, Ohio, is a rather peculiar character. He is far from being the handsomest person in the world; in fact, he is said to be in possession of the veritable knife which falls to the plainest man. He has but one eye, and that squints, and is near-sighted. But "handsome is as handsome does," and the Doctor has many sterling qualities, which endear him to all lovers of good order and morality. Among the others is an utter abhorrence of the habit of profanity too often indulged in by persons who would otherwise pass for gentlemen. To hear a string of oaths nettles the Doctor very much; and he often has independence and spirit enough to tell the person using such language what he thinks of it, and in such a manner, too, as confounds, if it does not convict. But the Doctor once met his match. One rainy evening he stepped into a barber's shop for a shave, standing his umbrella (a rather dilapidated specimen) in a corner. Soon afterward a young man-a stranger -stepped in with a nice new umbrella and placed it by the side of the Doctor's. In some conversation with the barber the new-comer let out an oath or two. This was too much for old Joe, who immediately proceeded to lecture the guilty party in round terms for the ill-breeding and disregard of morals and religion his conduct betokened. The lecture was taken in good part by the person to whom it was directed, who acknowledged his fault, saying it was a bad habit he had acquired, and of which he would endeavor to break himself, thanking the Doctor for his timely reminder. Here the matter dropped. The Doctor took the vacant chair and was shaved. This over, he resigned his seat to the recipient of his lecture, and proceeded to invest himself with his cravat, coat, etc., after which he inadvertently picked up the new-comer's umbrella and started for the door. The latter was watching him, and arrested him thus: "See here, old Squinty, you gave me a lecture a short time ago. It's my turn now. Of all the lowest, meanest, most despicable tricks a man can be guilty of, stealing another's umbrella is the worst." The Doctor drew a focus on the umbrella, set it down, took his own, and left the shop without a word, greeted, however, by a roar of laughter from the inmates. A RECENT English work presents the following philosophical poem: Commandments ten Both smiles and dresses; In hits or misses They're right! they're women. Oh! man so strong, She's right! she's woman. THE John O'Groats Journal gives the following: Two worthies who had quarreled, and who had been vowing vengeance on each other for some time, happened to meet recently in a public house in Pulteneytown, where they mutually determined to settle up old scores, mine host volunteering to act as referee. The most natural weapon, the fist, was of course the only one that had occurred to them; but mine host, having one eye to his business and another to his fun, suggested that their quarrel was not one which should be settled by the vulgar resort to fisticuffs. Would they allow him to select the weapons with which they should fight? "Agreed," said both the worthies. "Well, gentlemen," said mine host, "you shall fight it out across this table, and your weapons shall be, not pistols, but soda-water bottles." A dozen baskets having been supplied to each, the fight began in downright earnest, each firing away his corks as fast as he could make them “pop," and by the time that each had stood a dozen rounds from his opponent they were tired enough, and the ludicrousness of the operations having changed their wrath to laughter loud and long, they shook hands and departed, not foes, but friends. AN editor and his wife were walking out in the bright moonlight one evening. Like all editors' wives, she was of an exceedingly poetic nature, and said to her mate, "Notice that moon; how bright, and calm, and beautiful!" "Couldn't think of noticing it for any less than the usual rates-a dollar and fifty cents for twelve lines!" PROF Roman or the fall of the French empire. Cromwell's "crowning mercy" of Worcester, as he used to call it, crowned Charles II. if it crowned any one. It afforded the latter person a few more years of leisure for the culture of wild oats, and for forgetting the blunders which had brought his father to the block. That brief interval past, the bones of the victor were on the gibbet, and the vanquished was on the throne of England. ROFESSOR CREASY has described what he termed the "Six Decisive Battles of the World." His difficulty seems to have been to find out first, what constitutes a decisive battle; and, second, which, out of many famous combats, deserved the character. The difference among them is obviously one of degree. All battles, great or small, decide something; and the greatest of them are but expressions of the results prepared by slow-working influences and conditions. The word event, applied | All wondered why Bull Run was not déciwith just precision by those masters of the ex- sive. Johnston could have made it so, it was act sciences, the French savans and the En- the custom to allege, if he had had more amglish betting-ring, to a horse-race or a revolu- munition, more cavalry, more knowledge of tion, meets the question. Battles are events. the state of things in Washington, and, above They follow rather than originate. The fate all, more audacity. It is now seen that, had of Rome was settled long before Actium, and the advantages of that day been pushed to the that of Napoleon before Waterloo. The going utmost and Washington been captured, the reoff of Cleopatra or the coming up of the Prus-sult of the war, though it might have been postsians did not settle the establishment of the poned, would hardly have been altered. Stead Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by Harper and Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. VOL. XXXII.-No. 190.-E E ier and deeper causes were beneath the fortunes of battle. Accidents had their effect in both directions, on both sides. The discovery of gold in the Rocky Mountains and of mineral oil in Pennsylvania furnished an unlooked-for substitute for cotton in the commercial and financial systems of the North. The unaccountable panic which followed the repulse at Manassas gave the South time to organize and develop her military resources. But things like these are but pebbles or reefs which slightly divert or temporarily obstruct the current of events without stopping or materially retarding its progress to the assured end. To the contemporary observer they are apt to appear all-controlling; but as the present fades into the past, they lose their apparent importance with every year till they are assigned their true value by finished history, if history can ever be called finished. Ridge the Confederacy existed only on the plains that border the sea. It fell, like that other edifice that was built upon the sand. We propose, in this paper, to play neither the military nor the philosophic historian. That task is for other pens, present or to come. We feel qualified neither for its Froissart-the racy raconteur of feats he saw-nor for its cold and passionless Guizot, mercilessly picking to pieces its springs and movements and calmly solving the cui bono. We are very sure that abler hands will eliminate from the bloody story all the lessons it contains for America and the world. Our intention is only to sketch a portion of its theatre-to follow, in a slight and desultory way, the furor of the cannon-shot as it deepened toward Richmond, making the pencil supplement the pen in delineating some of the most notable scenes as they now appear. Nothing can be more simply described than the profile of the country near the falls of the James. It is naturally a smooth plain, sloping very gradually toward the east. What are called hills are only the intervals of the original surface left by the washing of the water-courses. It has but two levels, say one hundred feet apart. One is the top of the hills, and the other the bed of the streams. The Chickahominy, the James, and all the other rivers, run southeast, their short affluents coming in, generally from the north, at regular intervals, forming, with the "hills" between, so many intrenchments and wet ditches. M'Clellan used them, along the Chickahominy, rather as traverses, protecting his flanks while his front pressed westward. For Lee, in 1864-5, they were, on the north side of the James, front defenses, looking to the southeast. The London Times, in the true spirit of that criticism which settles every thing with a phrase, termed the combats of the war "gigantic skirmishes," mere military demonstrations-that is, as indeterminate in their immediate issue as in their bearing on the general struggle. That designation might as well be applied to nearly all Wellington's European battles, save his last, and even to that so far as his own army was concerned. The topography of our battlefields generally combined with the stubborn character of the troops on both sides to prevent a crushing rout. On a vast plain, mostly covered with wood, a reliable reconnoissance was very difficult, and the manoeuvring of large armies with energy and effect correspondingly 80. Perhaps the best means of comparison between American and European campaigns were furnished in the Valley of Virginia. The country is open and undulating, with bold streams and few or no swamps. Operations there were rapid, sweeping, and effective. From Harper's Ferry to Winchester, Cedar Creek, Port Republic, M'Dowell, and New Hope collisions were battles and reverses defeats. It was the grave of armies and of military reputations. Patterson, Miles, Shields, Fremont, Banks, Milroy, Early, are among the unburied shades that stalk along the Styx of the Shenandoah. the commanders in that district are peculiarly applicable the classic epitaph on the cow, who lived in clover and "died all over." There gun-boats were unheard of and iron-clads a myth. Warfare was wholly terrestrial. Aahominy to its mouth. It led to Westover and "change of base" was unknown, because no base existed except what generalship created. Till Sheridan's torch erased it from the military map that once beautiful and always historic vale was the Flanders of the South, ever fought for but never conquered. The only fragment of mountain territory that adhered in spirit to the Confederacy, its record serves to show how seriously the contest might have been prolonged had all the upland nominally included within the limits of the latter proved as stanch to its fortunes. Save along the skirts of the Blue The conformation of the ground thus requiring an army moving on Richmond to approach it diagonally along the crests of the watersheds, unless strong enough to despise any opposition in crossing the rivers, M'Clellan and Grant advanced in directions precisely opposite, and both obliquely to the city. Both found, after ricochetting against Lee's lines on the Chickahominy, that nature had fixed their line of retreat for them. It did not lead to the To White House, as both seem at first to have imagined. Neither did it lead down the Peninsula; for after the abandonment of the Coal Harbor lines, the Confederate cavalry had tolerably free sweep on the left bank of the Chick its neighborhood necessarily. Thus, by favor of nature the Federal armies of invasion drifted, and by favor of Lee were driven, into the true channel of advance on Richmond-the same followed by Phillips and Cornwallis eighty odd years before. The rediscovery of this fossil fact showed the fallacy of the Manassas, the Rapidan, the Fredericksburg, and the Peninsular plans. M'Clellan, in his meditations at Harrison's Landing, had a glimpse of it; but it remained for Grant to bring the old idea to practice. Instead of continuing his echelon On the ninth day of the month came a line from Stonewall Jackson: "God blessed us with victory at M'Dowell to-day!" A few days later came something in the opposite vein-Norfolk was evacuated, and the Merrimac blown up. The former was expected; but nobody could realize the latter. That a captain selected for his dar the last consequence to hold, should have destroyed her without attacking or being attacked was simply incredible. But, a morning or two after, a procession of two hundred sturdy tars, bearing at their head a flag torn by shot and shell, came from the Petersburg train and filed down Maine Street on their way to Drewry's Bluff. So it is that the battle-fields of the Richmond campaigns arrange themselves into two clusters, or strings, one extending from the upper Rap-ing, in an invulnerable ship, at a post it was of pahannock to Malvern Hill, and the other from City Point to Five Forks. Subsidiary to the latter is the line joining the two, from Fort Harrison to Port Walthall. This was merely subsidiary. The Butler movement, as a movement on Richmond, was a failure from the first. It did very well up to the head of gun-boat navigation. There it stopped. It was aquatic, or nothing; and head-quarters were very appropriately located on the steamboat Greyhound. The Richmond and Petersburg railroad continned to be used regularly by the Confederate army, government, and citizens, throughout its whole length, and in sight of the Bermuda Hundred lines, up to the night of the evacuation. We do not mean, in this paper, to ape Jomini, to discuss gravely either maps or marches, or to be polemic in any way. It is our purpose simply to glance, in discursive fashion, and from an inside point of view, at leading or illustrative events, places, and incidents in the region we have sketched. The merry month of May, 1862, in and around Richmond, came fully up to the requirements of the poets. It was lovely indeed, in city and field. The fine elms of the Capitol Square drooped their spring foliage over flashing fountains, soft sward, and walks thronged with "fair women and brave men." The gay bustle of military preparation brightened the streets. New regiments, with full ranks, from the South, marched every day through a gauntlet of cheers and waving of white handkerchiefs in whiter hands. Outside the city, the farms, undreaming of devastation, smiled with springing grain and happy labor. "From his sweet banquet, mid the perfumed clover, The robin soared and sung." fied. M'Clellan's aspiration had been grati His way was open. The Merrimac was neutralized. Nothing sadder had the war yet brought to the Confederate capital than that reinforcement from the sea. As it passed along manly eyes for a moment filled, and firm lips gave way to ill-forebodings. As the month neared its close Jackson again turned the scale. Banks was on the trot; and that gray old border town, Winchester, the aerie of the young Washington, was recovered. The place has quite a history of its own, as its good people were always fond of telling you. That history has been much enlarged by the war; since it was the outpost of the Confederacy, as it was that of the Colonies in 1755, and in the four years changed hands seventy-six times. Of all these military vicissitudes, however, none will be so long remembered as the occasion whereon Banks's army, struck at once in front, on right and left, and in rear, staggered back, a mass of mere chaos, through the narrow limestone streets, and streamed over the northeastern hills in hopeless rout. Shade, however, followed light closely again. Indeed in those latter days of May their alternations were so rapid that twilight may be said to have for a while prevailed. The news of the evacuation of Corinth, and Fitz-John Porter's severe treatment of Branch's North Carolinians, around Ashland and the crossing of the |