A rather amusing incident of this kind which occurred whilst we were near Black's and White's, may serve as an illustration. Col. Harriman, having been informed that large body of guerrillas had formed a camp in his neighborhood, sent Capt. Burnett, A. D. C. on his staff, accompanied by a sufficient force, to reconnoitre and report on the condition of affairs. The Captain set out on his expedition and soon arrived in sight of the enemy, (?) whom he found to consist of about a couple of hundred colored individuals camped in due form, and with camp guards, &c., duly posted. The commanding officer was a private of the 5th Mass. Colored Cavalry, who had, by some means or other, strayed from his command, and had, like David, "gathered to him every one (of his color) that was in distress and every one that was discontented," and had established a camp in regular military style.
The sable chieftain sat at his tent door as the Captain approached, and while one intelligent son of Africa was carefully cleaning his master's (?) horse, another highly intellectual contraband was blacking his boots. The scene was a rich one and might be taken for the frontispiece of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's next novel. The terms of capitulation were not, we believe, quite as ceremonious nor so advantageous as those agreed on between Gens. Grant and Lee, for poor Cuffee was sent back to his regiment under arrest, and his sable warriors who belonged to the neighboring plantations dispersed to their homes, and their arms, which they had collected from the battle field of the Five Forks, turned over to Uncle Sam.
Whilst camped here the sad news reached us of the brutal assassination of President Lincoln by the wretched maniac, Booth, and I say maniac, not to palliate his crime, but because his act was one none but a maniac would have committed. For, however much he may have sympathized with the Southern cause and hated its fancied oppressors, he might have known that such an expression of malignity and revenge, even though sanctioned by the Confederate government, as after events have shown it was, would, as it in fact has, crush out all sympathy for the rebellion, at home and abroad, and extinguish the last sentiment of pity for what its partisans have been pleased to call their heroic resistance against superior numbers.
The effect the news of the assassination had on the army may be imagined, but cannot be described. In the midst of our rejoicings at the successes which had so lately crowned our efforts, and while the praises and acclamations of the North were yet ringing in our ears, it fell on us like a thunderbolt. Just as the dawn of peace, crowning the long and arduous labors of the past four years, was beginning to illuminate his pathway, in the very zenith of his career and at the height of his fame, our good, kind President was ruthlessly and brutally murdered. There is no need here to eulogize those virtues, so well known to all who have watched so anxiously and with such interest the successive acts of his career, nor to enlarge on that stubborn honesty and integrity of purpose and principle which has brought this nation safely through a sea of troubles which well nigh overwhelmed it. Abraham Lincoln has gone to his account, and the tears of a nation that honored him whilst living, follow him to the grave, now that he is dead. The loss is ours, not his; he has died at his post with his harness on his back; he has laid down his life for the country he loved more than life itself, a soldier in the cause of humanity, freedom and right, and what could man wish more. Peace to his soul! When the time comes for us to go, may our record, if not as glorious, be at least as clear as his.
REUNION.
[From the London Spectator.]
An end at last! The echoes of the war—
The weary war beyond the western waves—
Die in the distance. Freedom's rising star