King HenryVI.
O, 'twas a din to fright a monster's ear,
To wake an earthquake!
Tempest.
Rebel Guerrillas Outwitted.
In January, Colonel Lawson, of the Missouri Union forces, was captured by a dozen Rebels, who, after some threats of hanging, decided to release him upon parole. Not one of them could read or write a line. Lawson, requested by them to make out his own parole, drew up and signed an agreement, pledging himself never to take up arms against the United States of America, or give aid and comfort to its enemies! Upon this novel promise he was set at liberty.
On the 3d of February a journalistic friend telegraphed me from Cairo:
"You can't come too soon: take the first train."
Immediately obeying the summons, I found that Commodore Foote had gone up the Tennessee River with the new gunboats. The accompanying land forces were under the command of an Illinois general named Grant, of whom the country knew only the following:
Making a reconnoissance to Belmont, Missouri, opposite Columbus, Kentucky, he had ventured too far, when the enemy opened on him. Yielding to the fighting temptation, he made a lively resistance, until compelled to retreat, leaving behind his dead and wounded. Jefferson Davis officially proclaimed it a great Confederate success, and Rebel newspapers grew merry over Grant's bad generalship, expressing the wish that he might long lead the Yankee armies!
——"We, ignorant of ourselves,
Beg often for our own harms; so find we profit
By losing of our prayers."