tured upwards of seventy pieces of artillery, all their small arms, and other munitions of war.

While one corps of the army was thus engaged, the other ensured its success by arresting at Boonsboro' the combined armies of the enemy, advancing under their favorite general to the relief of their beleaguered comrades.

On the field of Sharpsburg, with less than onethird his numbers, you resisted, from daylight until dark, the whole army of the enemy, and repulsed every attack along his entire front of more than four miles in extent.

The whole of the following day you stood prepared to resume the conflict on the same ground, and retired next morning, without molestation, across the Potomac. Two attempts, subsequently made by the enemy, to follow you across the river, have resulted in his complete discomfiture and being driven back with loss.

Achievements such as these demand much valor and patriotism. History records few examples of greater fortitude and endurance than this army has exhibited; and I am commissioned by the President to thank you in the name of the Confederate States for the undying fame you have won for their arms.

Much as you have done, much more remains to be accomplished. The enemy again threaten us

with invasion, and to your tried valor and patriotism the country looks with confidence for deliverance and safety. Your past exploits give assurance that this confidence is not misplaced.

R. E. LEE, Commanding General.

SPEECH OF HON. A. H. STEPHENS.

AT RICHMOND, VA., APRIL 22, 1861.

THE distinguished gentleman was introduced to the throng by Mayor Mayo, and received with hearty cheers. In response, Mr. Stephens returned his acknowledgments for the warmth of the personal greeting, and his most profound thanks for it as the representative of the Confederate States. He spoke of the rejoicing the secession of Virginia had caused among her Southern sisters. Her people would feel justified if they could hear it as he had. North Carolina was out, and did not know exactly how she got out. The fires that were blazing here he had seen all along his track from Montgomery to Richmond. At Wilmington he had counted on the street twenty flags of the Confederate States.

The news from Tennessee was equally cheeringthere the mountains were on fire. Some of the States still hesitated, but soon all would be in.

Tennessee was no longer in the late Union. She was out by the resolutions of her popular assemblies in Memphis and other cities. Kentucky would soon be out; her people were moving. Missouri-who could doubt the stand she would take ?-when her Governor, in reply to Lincoln's insolent proclamation, had said: "You shall have no troops for the furtherance of your illegal, unchristian, and diabolical schemes!" Missouri will soon add another star to the Southern galaxy. Where Maryland is you all know. The first Southern blood has been shed on her soil, and Virginia would never stand by and see her citizens shot down. The cause of Balti- more is the cause of the whole South.

He said the cause we were engaged in was that which attached people to the Constitution of the late United States-it was the cause of civil, religious, and constitutional liberty. Many of us looked at the Constitution as the anchor of safety. In Georgia the people had been attached to the previous Union, but the Constitution which governed it was framed by the Southern talent and understanding. Assaults had been made on it ever since it was established.

Lately a latitudinous construction had been made by the North, while we of the South sought to interpret it as it was--advocating strict construction,

State rights, the right of the people to rule, &c. He spoke of all the fifteen Southern States as advocating this construction. To violate the principles of the Constitution was to initiate revolution; and the Northern States had done this.

The Constitution framed at Montgomery discarded the obsolete ideas of the old Constitution, but had preserved its better portion, with some modifications, suggested by the experience of the past; and it had been adopted by the Confederate States, who would stand by it. The old Constitution had been made an engine of power to crush out liberty; that of the Confederate States to preserve it. The old Constitution was improved in our hands, and those living under it had, like the phoenix, risen from their ashes.

The revolution lately begun did not effect alone property, but liberty. He alluded to Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers, and said he could find no authority in the old Constitution for such a flagrant abuse of power. His second proclamation had stigmatized as pirates all who sailed in letters of marque; this was also in violation of the Constitution, which alone gave Congress that power.

What had the friends of liberty to hope for? Beginning in usurpation, where would it end? You are, however, said he, no longer under the rule