From the North.
We have received, by special arrangement, the New York papers, of Thursday, March 6th. They are filled with glorifications over the anticipated opening of a cotton trade through Tennessee, and other successes achieved by the ‘"Union" ’ arms. The Herald says:‘ "The success of the right wing of our [Federal] army on the upper Potomac is complete. A dispatch from Charlestown--Gen. Banks's headquarters — informs us that Leetown and Lovettsville are now added to the points held by the Union troops. Not less than $20,000 worth of provisions and forage has been captured from the rebels since our army crossed the Potomac. Another brilliant event on Tuesday night added fresh eclat to the movement of this portion of the grand army. A squadron of the first Michigan cavalry advanced as far as Berryville, on the Winchester turnpike, and there, lying in ambush, surprised a party of the rebel cavalry, routing them, killing three, and capturing nine horses as trophies, without the loss of a man. One of the horses was recognized as the celebrated black steed rode by Col. Ashby."
’ Now, since it so happened that Col. Ashby has not ridden a black steed at any time during the war, we know the latter portion of the above paragraph is a falsehood, and probably the ‘"brilliant event"’ described was en-entirely manufactured for the Northern market.
The Herald further says:
‘ Advices from the lower Potomac yesterday state positively that the rebels are concentrating in large force opposite Gen. Hooker's division. It is believed in Washington that their forces on the Potomac have been greatly increased since the late victories of our armies in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri, as though the rebel leaders were now convinced that their last grand stand must be made on the Potomac, where their most powerful strongholds and the pick and choice of their army are located.
’ Advices from Springfield, Mo., are to March 1st. The dispatch says that on the Wednesday night previous the Federal Captain Montgomery, of Wright's battalion, was surprised at Keithville, Barry county, by 850 ‘"rebels,"’ supposed to belong to McBride's division, but who represented themselves as Texan Bangers. They fired into the house occupied by the Federals, killing two and wounding one. One of the ‘ "rebels"’ was killed; the balance fled, taking with them about seventy horses. The remainder of the news possesses no interest, except the following:
It is feared that the combined forces of Price, Van-Dorn, McCulloch, Pike and McIntosh, will again overrun the country, which keeps thousands from avowing their sentiments. Price, after a hot chase, is cooling off in the Boston mountains. Ben McCulloch is on this side of the mountains.
The papers contain nothing new from Columbus, beyond that already given by telegraph.
Forty-nine Confederate officers started from Columbus, Ohio, for Fort Warren, on the 4th.
From Tennessee.
R. R. Cheatham, Mayor of Nashville, has issued a proclamation giving the ‘ "satisfactory result"’ of an interview between the city authorities and Gen. Buell. He therefore respectfully requests that business be resumed, and that all citizens, of every trade and profession, pursue their regular vocations. The sale or giving away of intoxicating liquors is, however, strictly prohibited.The Nashville correspondent of the New York Times gives a picture of the state of affairs, from which it appears that the invaders were not received with any great amount of cordiality. We make some extracts:
‘ I have spent a good deal of time to-day in conversing with the citizens, and found but little. Union sentiment. Men asserted that they were not citizens of the United States--didn't want any protection from the Government, and in several cases even refused to sell any goods to the soldiers or officers. One man said he was a Union man, but never had dared say so for fear of being hung; another said the only two nights' sleep he had in weeks were since the arrival of the National army. Another individual assured me with a very haughty air, that there were no Union men in Nashville except among mechanics and laborers; no gentlemen, he said; were anything but Secessionists, or rebels, if I liked the term any better.
’ Gen. Grant and his staff visited Nashville, and called upon Mrs. James K. Polk. Of the interview the writer says:
‘ She received her visitors courteously, but with a polished coldness that indicated sufficiently in which direction her sympathies ran — she was simply polite and ladylike; in no case patriotic. While she discreetly forbore to give utterance to any expression of sympathy for the South, she as rigidly avoided saying anything that might be construed into a wish for the success of the Government.--She hoped, she said, that the tomb of her husband would protect her household from insult and her property from pillage; further than this she expected nothing from the United States, and desired nothing.
’ The correspondent finds that ‘"the ladies of Nashville are as full of treason as they are in occasional cases of loveliness."’ Among the evidences of their contempt for the Yankees the following is given:
‘ Occasionally I met other specimens of Nashville ladies, who, in many cases supposing me to be a soldier, from the possession of a blue overcoat, described upon meeting a wide semi-circle of avoidance, swinging, as they did so, their rotundant skirts with a contemptuous flirt far out, as if the very touch of a blue coat would be contamination. And then the angle at which the noses of the naughty darlings went up, and the extent to which their lips and eyes went down were not the least interesting portion of these little by-plays, and assisted materially in showing the exquisite breeding of these amiable demoiselles.
’ A later account says--
‘ "Union men begin to make their appearance. They say that a majority will yet be found on our side, but that it will take some time to develop the feeling that has been so thoroughly crushed."
’
From Washington.
The latest reports of proceedings in the Federal Congress present nothing of interest. The Confiscation bill was still a prominent subject of consideration. Among the items telegraphed to the New York Herald are the following:‘ The publication of the defence of General Fremont produces much excitement here.--The Committee on the Conduct of the War state that the publication was unauthorized by them.
The Committee of the House on Foreign Relations have the Mexican question under consideration. Mr. Seward is preparing for the committee a valuable paper on the subject of our commercial intercourse with Mexico.
’ Official information has been received that the Portuguese Government is devoting its attention to the cultivation of cotton in its African possessions.
It is strongly suspected at the Treasury Department that the report of the circulation of counterfeit five dollar Treasury notes, which prevailed in New York a few days ago is erroneous, and that there are really no such counterfeits in existence, but that the rumor was either ignorantly or designedly set afloat.
A petition has been started by the distillers and dealers in domestic liquors here, praying Congress to lay tax of thirty to forty-five cents per gallon on spirits, instead of fifteen cents, as proposed in the Tax bill. The petitioners give as a reason the great increase of revenue which such a tax would produce.
Carl Schurs, United States Minister to Madrid, left here this afternoon to make a speech to the German element in New York in favor of the abolition faction. This ‘"rule or ruin"’ clique dies hard, but the inexorable logic of events is fast crushing cut these opponents of the Union policy of the Administration.
About two o'clock this morning the residence of Count Mercier, French Minister, at Georgetown Heights, took fire from a defective flue, and was entirely consumed. The papers and valuables were saved, but the elegant furniture was much damaged. The Fire Department was on hand, and prompt assistance was rendered by the soldiers. The house was formerly occupied by the Count Sartiges.
United States Marshal Keyes, of Boston, who received the rebels Buckner and Tilghman on Monday, and consigned them to Fort Warren, is here, and reports that these rebels are confident of being exchanged for Major Gen. Banks, who will be captured, as they believe, by Gen. Johnston, Buckner is treated at present as a prisoner or war; but he is also a fugitive from justice, there being an indictment for treason pending in Kentucky, which was found against him long before his capture by General Grant.
"the last terrible agonies"
The following dignified editorial which appears in the New York Herald, of the 6th inst., shows what the Yankees think of the state of affairs in Richmond.The rebellion is in the last terrible agonies of a violent dissolution. Richmond is getting too hot to hold it. Read the exciting information which we publish this morning from the Richmond papers. The Union men of that city are beginning to put the handwriting on the wall. ‘"Attention, Union Men!"’ ‘"Watch and Wait!"’ ‘"The Union Forever!"’ ‘"The Hour of Deliverance Approaches!"’ are among the mysterious and significant inscriptions which Davis and his despotic cabal of usurpers find written under their very noses.
And there is a great panic in Richmond — No wonder. Cut off at Nashville, invested at Savannah, threatened by Burnside and by Wool, and ‘"held us in a vice by McClellan, "’ the rebels are truly in a desperate situation at every point, and especially at Richmond. And they have arrested John Minor Botts and twenty other Union men on the charge of treason. We are gratified to hear that Botts not only still lives, but is still a living terror to real traitors. And martial law has been proclaimed within and for ten miles around Richmond. Another good sign; for it shows that the people of that city and for ten miles around it are so dangerously sick of Jeff. Davis that nothing but the civil law of the bayonet will keep them quiet.
What a charming little city to live in has Richmond become under the beneficent despotism of Davis! What a beautiful illustration it is of the delights of that happy valley of Rasselas, as promised by Yancey with the millennium of his Southern Confederacy! All distillations of spirituous liquors, and all sales of the same, under the ban of martial law! Can anything be imagined more disgusting to the rollicking champions of Southern independence, such as the rubicund and highly-perfumed Governor Letcher, for example? No liquor to be sold in Richmond? A Maine law there by martial law! Does Davis know what he is doing? Does he not know that in stopping the grog of his subjects and victims he is in a very fair way to raise the devil in a whirlwind! The Sepoys conspired and brought about that horrible mutiny in India because they were required to take cartridges between their teeth which had been greased with sacrilegious hog's lard, an intolerable insult to Brahma. Take away from the true sons of secession chivalry their whiskey, and you attack their religion. Truly, Jeff. Davis is on his last legs, and his days are numbered. A Southern Confederacy and no whiskey? That fixes him.
Financial matters.
The latest quotations of stocks in New York are--United States 6's registered, 1881 92 ⅞a93; do 6's, coupon, 1881, 92 a 92¾; do. 5's, coupon, 1784, 84½ a 95; Virginia 6's; 60½; Tennessee 6's, 60 a 60¼; North Carolina 6's, 67 a 70; Missouri 6's, 52½ a 52¼. The tax bill continues to be the chief topic of conversation in financial circles. There are wide differences of opinion with regard to the details of the measure. The New York Herald urges a tax upon cotton, wheat, corn, turpentine, sugar, and rice.
Important from Mexico.
The steamship Columbia, at New York from Havana, brings important news from Mexico, dated at Vera Cruz on the 20th of February. It is in substance as follows:‘ The Spanish General Prim and the Mexican General Dobindo had held a conference at Soledad on the part of the European Powers and the Government of the Republic.--The result was that the allied troops are to be permitted to pass the Chiquihuitt — the key of the Valley of Mexico — and to garrison the cities of Cordova, Orizaba and Teheran.--When they are in these positions the conferences are to be resumed, Spain and France promising to resume their status in quo at Vera Cruz, provided they are not satisfactory. The allies were in much distress at Vera Cruz just before. An opinion prevailed in some minds that General Dobiado had betrayed Juarex, but others, again, thought the allies would be in dangerous places should hostilities be resumed. General Prim had announced that the Austrian Archduke Maximilian would be placed on the throne of Mexico. From Havana, we learn that some of the Spanish legislators dreaded the movement of France and England in Mexico as dangerous to Cuba.
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