August 28.–A party of National troops under the command of Capt. Smith, detailed on the 24th ult. to break up a force of secessionists at Wayne Court House, Va., returned to Camp Pierpont, at Ceredo, having been successful in their expedition.–(Doc. 14.)
–President Lincoln to-day appointed as aides-de-camp to Gen. Wool, Alexander Hamilton, Jr., and Legrand B. Cannon of Now York, each with the rank of Major, and William Jay, of Bedford, N. Y., with the rank of Captain. These appointments were made at Gen. Wool’s request, and the official notification from the War Department instructs the aids to immediately report to him in person.–N. y. Tribune, August 29.
–The funeral ceremonies and military display in honor of Gen. Lyon took place at St. Louis, Mo., to-day. The procession which escorted the remains to the railroad depot consisted of Gen. Fremont’s body-guard, under Gen. Zagoni, Capt. Tillman’s company of cavalry; a section of Capt. Carlin’s battery; the First regiment of Missouri Volunteers, Col. Blair; Gen. Fremont and staff; a number of army and .volunteer officers; city officials; prominent citizens; and the Third regiment of United States Reserve Corps, Col. McNeil, all under command of Brigadier-General Siegel. The streets through which the procession passed were thronged with spectators, and the flags throughout the city were draped in mourning. –Louisville Journal, August 29.
–The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle and Sentinel gives the following reasons to the Confederate States for organizing a coast defence:
“1. Because there are many places where the enemy might commit raids and do us damage before we could organize and drive them off. Beaufort District, opposite to Savannah, has several fine ports and inlets, navigable for large vessels, wholly unprotected. (See United States Coast Survey.) This district has five black to one white inhabitant. Several inlets on our coast, which our enemies know like a book, from surveys in their possession, are equally unprotected.
“2. In two months more they will not fear our climate. By that time they might be ready to make a sudden descent and find us unprepared.
“3. A small force might eject them if ready to go at once; when, if we have to wait, a much larger one will become necessary.
“4. By organizing and drilling infantry and guerillas at home, there will be no need to call upon the President for troops, and a feint from the enemy would not injure our Virginia operations.
“There are many who are so situated that they cannot enlist for the war who would willingly organize to go for a few months, if necessary, to defend the coast. We earnestly hope that the Governor will soon have companies organized for this purpose all over the State. Captain Cain has a company drilling for this purpose in this county, and we understand that Gov. Brown has accepted them as State troops to defend the coast, and is much pleased with the plan. Captain Harris has also a company of mounted rangers, with double-barrel shotguns, for home defence. If every county will imitate the example of Old Hancock we would lave 15,000 drilled troops in the field at the command of the Governor, ready to operate at any point on a brief warning. Will not the editors throughout the State urge this thing on the people?”
–The Nineteenth regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers, under the command of Col. Edward W. Hincks, of Lynn, left Beston for New York, on the way to the seat of war. The regiment has been in quarters for four weeks at Camp Schouler, Lynnfield. They are fully equipped and are armed with Enfield rifles. They have with them seventeen baggage wagons, seven ambulances and hospital wagons, and one hundred horses. Col. Hincks was formerly Lieut.-Col. of the Eighth Massachusetts Militia regiment, that held the Annapolis Railroad with the New York Seventh; and Lieut.-Col. Deveraux was Captain of the Salem Zouaves, who, with the Massachusetts sappers and miners, brought out the Constitution from the Annapolis navy yard. The Tiger Zouaves are a part of this regiment.
–Governor Dennison, of Ohio, issued a proclamation to the citizens of that State, calling upon them to rally to the defence of the Union, in accordance with the late call of the Executive at Washington.–(Doc. 15.)
–The National Intelligencer of this day gives the following on the mode in which the minor affairs of the South are managed: The lamentations which journals sympathizing with the secession cause express over the loss of “public and private liberty,” would perhaps carry some weight if their sincerity were believed to be equal to their unction, or if any recognition was made of the relation which such losses bear as the natural effects of the causes set in motion by the revolutionists. The vehement denouncers of “Federal usurpations,” which, in whatever degree they may exist, are but the inevitable incidents of a state of things precipitated by the secession movement, these journals, with a hypocrisy only equalled by their effrontery, continue to reserve all their virtuous indignation for the secondary, rather than the primary movers in these great transactions–for these who are acting on the defensive in the preservation of the National authority, rather than these who were the first to invoke the precedents of tyranny for its overthrow. As a sample of the maxims which pass current in the seceded States, without incurring a breath of censure from these sturdy defenders of the Constitution and of public liberty, we make the following selection from a Southern journal:–
The Charleston Mercury announces the passage of the following resolutions by a vigilance committee of that city:
Resolved, That this committee considers it highly inexpedient and impolitic for persons resident at the South to visit the free States of the Federal Government and return to our midst, and especially do we condemn visits of the same person.
Resolved, therefore, That in future any resident of Charleston and its vicinity who shall go to any of the Northern States, unless with previous knowledge and consent of the committee, shall not be permitted to return to our community under pain of such disabilities or punishment as the law may decree.
Such are the institutes of public opinion as now enforced in “the last home of constitutional liberty,” and it is from men who have no word of reproof for the authors of such usurpations that we are doomed to hear daily homilies on the rigorous proceedings of the National Government. These proceedings would indeed be most abnormal in a time of public peace, and it is quite possible that innocent parties may in some cases suffer from the unjust suspicions engendered in a day of great civil defection and official treachery. But it does not become the apologists of the men who have directly superinduced the public and private calamities which afflict the whole nation, to assume the championship of these who are the victims of a wrong which they seek to palliate and protect.