From the Rappahannock.
From the position of affairs on the Rappahannock the impression prevails that active operations cannot be long delayed. For several days past the enemy have been making such disposition of his forces as to induce the belief that an advance is early contemplated. Passengers by the Central train, last evening, represent that the main army of Pope has moved up from Culpeper into Madison, and that a considerable infantry force had been advanced in a southwesterly direction as far as Stanardsville, in Greene county. This point is on the road leading into the Valley, through Swift Run Gap, and only a few miles from the foot of the Blue Ridge.The depredations committed by Pope's army in Culpeper are without parallel, even in this war of unheard of atrocities. The infamous order of the Yankee Commandant of that Department has been put into practical operation, and, as a result, large numbers of horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs, &c. have been stolen from their rightful owners, and the stock of wheat, corn, and other necessaries of life, constituting the sustenance of the people, have been appropriated to the use of the invaders. In some instances families have been left upon the verge of starvation. Acts of the most infamous character enacted upon the negro women of the county are reported in the presence of white ladies, and in some instances deeds of violence have been perpetrated upon respectable ladies themselves. Citizens are daily arrested and sent off to Washington, there to be incarcerated. Among others, the Rev. John Cole, an aged minister of the Episcopal Church, was arrested on Sunday last, and taken from his pulpit, for praying for the Confederacy. They stole from Capt. John Taylor, an officer in the Confederate army, twenty-eight negroes, burnt his house and all the outbuildings, carried off his stock and everything else of value, and desolated his entire farm, one of the finest in the county.
