reported a necessity to straighten gaged and handled his command with judgment and energy. were and reform his lines in the old position, near the lines he had stormed. Here his infantry rested during the greater part of the section of Eschelman's Washingday-Dunnovant's cavalry dis- ton Artillery, and found a heavy mounted, being thrown forward, force of the enemy, with six or as skirmirshers, towards a small eight pieces of artillery, occupyforce which occupied a ridge, in ing the salient of the outer line of the edge of George Gregory's works on the turnpike and his woods, North of Proctor's neck. This force of the enemy with an insignificant body of cavalry (believed to be negroes) and a report of some gunboats, coming up the river were the only menace to our left. At 10 a. m., I withheld an order for Ransom to move until further developments should be made for the following reasons: own defensive lines. Our artillery engaged at very short range, disabiing some of the enemy's guns and blowing up two limbers. Another section of the same command opened from the right of the turnpike. They both held their positions, though with heavy loss, until their ammunition was spent, when they were relieved by an equal number of The right was heavily engaged- pieces from the reserve artillery all of the reserve had been de- under Major Owens. Hagood tached, right and left, at different with great vigor and dash, drove times-the silence of Whiting's the enemy from the outer lines guns, which had been heard a in his front, capturing a number short time about 8 a. m., gave of prisoners and, in conjunction reasonable hope that the had met with Johnson, five pieces of arno resistance and would soon be tillery-three 20 pounder Parrots engaged--a dispatch had been and two fine Napoleons. He sent him at 9 a. m., which was then took position in the works, repeated at 9.30 a. m., to "press his left regiment being thrown on and press over everything in forward by Hoke to connect with your front, and the day will be Ransom's right. In advancing, complete;" Ransom, moreover, this regiment encountered the not only reported the enemy in enemy behind a second line of works in the woods, with abattis interlaced with wire; an attack at that point not being contemplated, it was ordered back to the line of battle, but not before its intrepid advance had caused it to sustain strong force in his front, but expressed the opinion that the safety of his command would be compromised by an advance. On the right, Hoke had early advanced his skirmishers and opened with his artillery. The considerable loss. This circumfog and other canses temporarily stance has been referred to before, delayed the advance of his line of as the occasion of a mistake by battle; when he finally moved Ransom. forward, he soon became hotly en Johnson, meanwhile, had been ing against his right flank, he withdrew some distance back, but not as far as his original position. These two brigades were not afterwards engaged, though they heavily engaged. The line of the his officers that masses were formenemy bent around his right flank, subjecting his brigade, for a time, to fire in flank and front. With admirable firmness he repulsed frequent assaults of the enemy, moving in masses against went to the front; Corse about his right and rear. Leader, one hour after he fell back, and officers and men alike displayed Clingman at about 2.15 p. m. their fitness for the trial to which The enemy did not re-occupy the they were subjected. Among ground from which he was driven before they retired. many instances of heroism, I cannot forbear to mention that of In front of Hagood and JohnLieutenant Waggoner, of the 17th son the fighting was stubborn and Tennessee regiment, who went prolonged. The enemy slowly alone, through a storm of fire, retiring from Johnson's right, and pulled down a white flag took a strong position on the which a small, isolated body of ridge in front of Proctor's creek, our men had raised, receiving a massing near the turnpike, and wound in the act. The brigade occupying advantageous ground holding its ground nobly, lost at the house and grove of Charles more than a fourth of its entire Friend. At length Johnson having brushed the enemy from his right flank in the woods, with some assistance from the Washington Artillery, and cleared his front, rested his troops in the shelter of the outer works. number. Two regiments of the reserve were sent up to its support, but were less effective than they should have been, through a mistake of the officer posting them. Hoke also sent two regiments from Clingman to protect Johnson's flank; but through a similar One of the captured pieces haverror they were posted in the woods ing opened on the enemy's masses, where the moral and material he finally fell back behind the effect of their presence was lost. woods and ridge at Proctor's I now ordered Hoke to press creek, though his skirmish line continued the engagement some hours longer. forward his right for the relief of his right centre, and he advanced Clingman with his remaining regiments, and Corse with his brigade. He drove the enemy with spirit, suffering some loss; but the gap between Clingman and the troops on his left induced him to retire his command, to prevent being flanked, and re-form it in the intermediate lines. Thus Corse became isolated, and learning from Further movements were here suspended to await communication from Whiting, or the sound of his approach, and to re-organize the troops which had become more or less disorganized. Brief firing at about 1.45 p. m., gave some hope of his proximity. I waited in vain. The firing heard was probably an encounter between Dearing and the enemy's rear guard. ordered by Whiting to communi- to time, been advanced after cate with me, but unsupported every skirmish, and now comas he was by infantry or artillery, pletely cover the Southern comhe was unable to do so, except by munications of the capital, thus sending a detachment by a cir- securing one of the principal obcuitous route, which reached me jects of the attack. The more after the work of the day was glorious results anticipated were closed. Dearing had been which have since, from time lost by the hesitation of the left wing, and the premature halt of the Petersburg column, before obstacles in neither case sufficient to have deterred from the execution of the movements prescribed. Too much praise cannot be bestowed on the officers and men, who fought the Battle of Drury's At 4 p. m., all hope of Whiting's approach was gone, and I reluctantly abandoned so much of my plan as contemplated more than a vigorous pursuit of Butler, and driving him to his fortified base. To effect this I resumed my original formation, and directed General Hoke to send two brigades Bluff, for the order and intrepidity forward along the Court House displayed by them, whenever road to take the enemy in flank called upon to meet the foe, reand establish enfilading batteries gardless of his advantage in numin front of the heights west of the ber and position. I shall take railroad. The formation of our pleasure in presenting the names line was checked by a heavy and of those who most distinguished prolonged storm of rain. Mean- themselves, as soon as the detailed while the enemy opened a severe Reports of subordinate commandfire which was soon silenced by ers shall have been received at our artillery. these Headquarters. The same opportunity will be taken to mention the names and services of those members of my personal and general Staff who Before we were ready to advance, darkness approached, and upon consultation with several of my subordinate commanders, it was deemed imprudent to attack, con- were present during that battle, sidering the probability of serious and of those officers who, belongobstacles and the proximity of ing to other commands, kindly Butler's entrenched camp. I volunteered their services on that therefore put the army in position occasion. The intelligent zeal for the night, and sent instructions to Whiting to join our right, at the railroad, in the morning. and activity of all these officers in transmitting orders and conveying information from one portion of the field to the other, contributed largely to the success of During the night the enemy retired to the fortified line of his present camp, leaving in our the day. hands some fourteen hundred Respectfully, Your ob't, serv't, General. prisoners, five pieces of artillery and five stands of colors. He now [Signed] G. T. BEAUREGARD, rests there, hemmed by our lines, SPRING. O! come, Sweet Virgin Daughter of the Year! Thy voice in birds and feel thy touch in showers! And come, Sweet Virgin, come! Come ravishing the tender-folded, downy buds Upon the sky, and maiden's cheeks as well- Come o'er the mountain-tops with em'rald shoon, DOWN INTO DEVONSHIRE. The title of this paper is not to journey. A journey to London be considered as indicating that from whatever quarter is of neidle fancy foralliteration exhibited cessity an up journey. The peoon such title-pages of books of ple who live on the top of the travel as "From Piccadilly to Malvern Hills, or the Yorkshire Pera," or "From Mayfair to Wolds, when they go to the MeMarathon." A journey from tropolis, go up to London, and in London in any direction, to any like manner, the Londoner would part of the island, is a down speak of going down to the Gramat fault with regard to Honiton as a country-town of Great Britain with myself; and I was told of one pians, or, for the matter of that, sume that they had all along down to the summit of Helvellyn known the Honiton lace to be itself. *" Down into Devonshire" English lace; of course, they may be taken, therefore, as a knew it. On mentioning the natural and proper caption for a matter to an English friend, I chapter descriptive of a jaunt learned that even at home many made from London into that well-informed people were equally beautiful country of the South Coast. Beautiful it was even in the light of a wintry day, as the Express train from London, lady who was so much annoyed bearing a throng of holiday at being disabused of her impleasure-seekers for the Christmas pression that its laces were of week, after skirting at a few miles foreign manufacture, that she dedistance the historic plain of clared she would never wear a Stonehenge, and whirling past the thread of them again. The town mellow-tinted, lofty-spired Ca- itself is altogether disproportioned thedral of Salisbury, entered at to the celebrity its fabrics have Axminster pastures as rich and given it, consisting of a line of soft as its carpets, and came to houses on either side of the road, rest at the neat little station, on the edge of the neat little country town, of Honiton. all up and down hill, with the hedge-rows extending to the very point where the highway becomes a street, and commencing again where it resumes it character as a highway, the houses of respectable age, but exceedingly clean and bright, contrasted with dingy London, rows of shops with two or three old-fashioned inns, and the post office, and the parish Nine out of ten of my fair readers know Honiton for its laces, or rather know and prize (more or less) the laces that are made at Honiton, and there are many, perhaps, that will share in my astonishment at discovering that it was an English, and not a French or Belgian, town, as I had church-the whole looking as if somehow vaguely and ignorant- it had been quite finished some ly fancied; though possibly they years ago, and as if it were quite will hesitate to admit the geo- satisfied with itself, and did not graphical misconception, and as- care for any change soever in its * The Story is told of the popular preacher of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Mr. Spurgeon, that in one of his discourses he likened the heavenly pilgrimage to a journey by the railway, size or general condition. In one little respect it has reason for its evident self-complacency. With a population of thirty-five hun and warned his unregenerate hearers lest, when they should present them- dred, it sends two members to selves at the station for seats in the last celestial train, they might be exParliament, and has therefore, cluded with the rebuke-"Friend, this the same weight in the national is not an up ticket, it is a down ticket." The preacher would seem, in his own legislature as the great city of mind, in the antithesis he makes of the rural districts and the Metropolis, to have reversed Cowper's notion that "God made the country and man made the town." Liverpool with it gigantic corporations and its five hundred thousand souls; an inequality of rep |