University of South Carolina Libraries
0 Editor Xcw Soulk: y I read the article in your last issue, headed "A Gallon of Diamond B," with a husky throat and thorough sympathy with the dry humor the author manifests. As I read, I pondered upon the antiquity of "a gallon per month." Being given to arithmetic, I figured that a gallon contains thirty-two gills, or one gill per day (allowing generous measure,) and it occurred to me that the ingenious editcr of "notes anil queries " might oe as sea whether the well known proverb. "EvenJack shall have his Gill,'* (vide that ancient volume " Mater Anser") did not arise from this venerable custom. The melancholy reflection arose in my mind that, among us' "naughty cusses'' f the fleet, every "Jack did not have his gill" an 1 had not for nearly two years. How unequally does fortune distribute her favors! Take your " gill" ye fortunate "Jacks" of the army, and do not sigh for more, for no cyphering will help you to the " pint." XarTicrs. ? n coloxil snteight 8 j3.8cape from l?apnvrnr Among the Rebels.?The following ia Colonel Streight's account of his escape from the Libby prison at Richmond, and his journey to the Union lines: He knew nothing of the digging of the tunnel until a few days before it was finished. He was the fifth to go out, and it was a tight squeeze?the Colonel is somewhat aldermunic in figure?but he managed to get out Dressed in citizen's clothes, and his haversack well filled with dried beef, tongne and crackers, he essayed an adieu to Rebeldom. Pursuant to previous agreement tiiat tney snoum keep separated as much as possible, he started in company with Captain Chamberlain. It was about nine p. m., when he left the prison. Passing up Canal street two squares, they turnedh to the left and went into Second street, thence going to the right and keeping on the east side of the town. At tliis early hour in tha^evening it was impossible not to meet and pass a good many, but they did so ijithout exciting suspicion. Going by the fortifications, they saw no one. Taking a northeasterly course, they continued their journey, proceeding slowly and cautiously, of course, until four a, m., when they halted in a dense wood close by the Cmckahominy swamps and remained the next day. Several times during the day squads of rebels, sent in search of the missing prisoners, passed, close by them, bnt happily without discovering their place of concealment. At dark they started aeain on their journey, crossing the Chickahominv ? on a fallen tree, and, as good luck would have it, encountering no pickets. They, got into a terrible thicket, and this night accomplished only five miles. 'ihev lay in this thicket all the second day, and the frequent firing of guns about them materially dissipated whatever of poetiical enjoyment they might otherwise have derived from their wilderness lodge. Thus far they had slept but little in thpday ; but nevertheless on the third night they made another start, now striking for the Pamunkey river. The detours they had to make to keep themselves ?"??* fwrer of the woods, and swamps i to traverse, made the journey slow, and daylight only found them mid way between the Chickahoniinv and Paiuunkey. ' The next day they ^missed in a swamp. Rebel scouts were still prowling aliout; I but they lay low and kept quiet, and I were not discovered. They suffered' greatly from cold. Next night they reach- i 3 nosr Pin#>r's feirv. : eil UiC inutuuovj! x j? and some ten milts above the White House. How to get across the river? i which here, although not very wide, is j deep and dangerous, and tho weather j meantime had reached a degree of cold- i ness making swimming an impossibility j ?was now the question, and it was a difficult one to solve. Thus far they had | abstained from coming in contact with ; any one, white or black. Thev were | compelled to call in contraband assistance, and in accomplishing this were four days; At length they got a negro, j : and the negro got a boat, and in this they | ! got across the river. And now good for- i tune smiled on them. This negro turned | them over to another negro, who piloted ' them fifteen miles down the opposite 1 bank of the river. As a good many of 1 the rebel soldiers, and particularly the !cavalry, living in this vicinity and *Glou * " V-?1 -1- 1 cester county, were nome on iuriuugu?, they still hod to move with exceeding j caution. Bat the kindness of the negroes saved them from capture. They ! were brought down to York river and set! across by a skiff at Rigelow's landing. From here they went down the river, J passing West Point in daylight Here. seeing no one save negro soldiers on picket, was the first positive assurance of having reached our lines. After the trying ordeal they had gone through, it was ! deeply gratifying to see the Stars and Stripes again at Williamsburg, which they reached in twelve days and one hour ! from the time of leaving Richmond. Improvement in Fire-Arms. One of the most marked developments made by the war is the great superiority I in range and acuracy of the new rifled guns over the old regulation muskets and artillery, a Dattie is now geiung 10 . j be a very deadly affair. Formerly two : bodies of troops might meet and bang away at each other lor hours without | killing mora than a handful ot men. It i is related that at the battle of Salamanca, for instance, no more than eight thousand men were put hors de combat ! although three million five hundred thousand cartridges were fired, together j with six thousand cannon balls to say nothing of cavalry and infantry charges, i | so that only one shot in four hundred ' and thirty took effect An officer enga- i ged at Waterloo has stated that he could I not see more than three or four saddles i emptied by the fire of one side of a square of .British infantry upon a body of French cavalry close to them. Com are these j abortive performances, with the deadly j nt nnr trnnns in that little affair whffch ! 1 took place at Gainsville, Florida, on the j 14th ult Forty-nine of onr men, armed1 | with the new repeating Spencer rifle, j ; withstood the charge of one hondi%d ' rebel cavalry, putting more than forty of j them hors dii combat. As the rebels were ; leaping the breastwork of cotton bales I the Federals poured in a seven-fold vol-! , ley, every man firing seve^phots in rapid j succession; when the astonished troops; j wheeled and fled, leaving their dead upon the ground. In this action, by the aid of this new repeating fire arm, nearly! 1 every Union soldier brought down his | | man. Such deadly firiug makes engagements short and sharp, and is terribly j ! destructive of human life. Look at the ' results of the battle of Olustce, in which ; otir little army of five thousand men lost J one-fifth of their number in a three hours iHght 1 The old regulation musket, with which j ' our soldiers were formerly armed, was a | Tery unreliable weapon. Sir Emerson ; 'Tenant tells us that "not long ago, aicetf | : trained marksman, provided with an old ! regulation musket, was placed to fire at, i a target eighteen feet square, at a distance j of three hundred yards, and found that J he could not put even into that spacious ; area one bullet out of twenty, At two hun-1 (ired yards, his success was not greater, and yet the fire-arm thus tested was the regular weapon of the British soldier so L?te as the year 1852." I It is the rifle that has brought about j the great change in the range and precis- J ion of fire arnv. The rified bore and elongated projectile have not only given 1 greater accnracr but triple power of penetration. The fcnfield rifle was thought to be a very superior weapon, but now it is acknowledged to be inferior to the Whitwortli rifle. The effective range of j the latter weapon is given at 2,000 yards, j or about one and one-seventh miles, a f ?listauce more than equal to the ordinary j1 capacity of the eye to distinguish objects I no larger than the body of a man. i Troops armed with such weapons must ; j of course go into action with greater, < confidence than they conld have felt < with the old regulation musket i"he i importance of the tnen having this con- j 1 Udence in their weaj)ons is seen in the battle of Olustee, in which a portion of I the 7th New Hampshire pare way be-| cause they hod been made to exchange i their favorite rifles for old and useless j guns. Formerly, when tr<>ops w?re armed j with the old smooth bores, it was not the J custom in warfare to to take careful aim j in firing. With the improvement in the , precision of fire-arnm each soldier be- j comes a sharpshooter and picks off his j man at a range equal to that of ordinary , ot4illoi?r TKio li.io i^o/^n if nnAOaa^.ivi* fn UitUA^I V lUin UOO XiiUV? Aii ^ iU 1 apply tlie same system of rifling to field ordinance. The old idea that he who 1 wishes to live long must enlist in the ai 1 tillery is no longer true, for the sharpshooters make it their business to pick1 off the artillery men at a great range, i At the battle of Olnstee^ Hamilton's bat-1 1 terv, in twenty minutes, lost forty-four! men killed and wounded and forty horses, and was consequently obliged to retire i with a loss of two guns. The new rifled artillery is as superior to the old. service i guns as the Whitworth rifle is toxoid; I Brown Bess. " The Armstrong gun can; hit a target two feet and six inches in di-! ameter, while the old cannon cannot be relied upon to hit a haystack. The accuracy of the Armstrong as 3000 yards is as seven to one compared with that of the common gun at 1000 yards, and at equal distances it is fifty, sevtn times as j acurate as our ordinary artillery. 1 n? \ Armstrong gun has a range of nearly five and a quarter miles, while the Whitworth 1'2-pounder has sent a ball 10,300 yards, a very little short of six miles! Our own Parrott guns are believed to be ; ?uite equal to the best English make, ndeed, the Committee on the Conduct of the War have thoroughly satisfied themselvs by the testimony "of conipe-1 tent witnesses, that the United States is using the best ordnance in the world, ; manufactured at the least cost An Incident.?The Springfield Keics is indebted to a correspondent for the following, which is too good to be lost, and for the accuracy of which he vouches:? "A short time ago, in the loyal city of - <1 i_? J i r i_ ruiiuucipuLiu, u largely uresneu leiuaie, answering the description of an F. F. V., hailed a street car, and jast as it stopped to take her aboard, a Union soldier stepped out of the car. On entering, several seats were vacant, and this would-be lady inquired in a very sharp tone,? "Where did that soldier sit? " No answer. Again, but in a more shrill tone than at i 1 first, the same question was put ? " Where did thai soldier sit ? " Still no reply from any of the passeri-11 gers, the car going ahead, the 'lady' still! unseated, when the same question was' fairly spit out between her teeth, i * 117? 1 " nfiKK OIL) THAT MA^i SIT : An honest Hibernian, quietly seated I near the unhappy female, and no doubt j being desirous of relieving her in some! slight degree, replied : "Faith, ma'am, he sit on his end, and took it away with him ! " What the rest of the occupants of the ' car did, I do not know, but one gentlemen left as speedily as possible, and the ^ above information through Him was too rich to be long kept a secret Colonel J. H. Baker, commanding the post of St Louis, has issued an order calling attention to a previous order prohibiting the wearing by citizens of the ' i uniform efthe United S'ates. He in-i forms the citizens that tf j removal of the i regulation buttons from a coat does not j relieve the wearer fron tho charge of | violating the above-na- ed order. Citi-! zens who may have ootained soldiers'j clothing by purchase or otherwise, and J discharged soldiers are required to dye l their clothing another color. Hereafter,! any citizen found wearing soldiers' clo- J thing, or any part thereof, will be arres- j ted, the clothing confiscated and turned J over to the Quartermaster's Department! for transfer to officers in charge of con- j traband camps for issue 10 destitute ne groes. The wearing on their hats, by E citizens or enlisted men, of the regulation | cord for officers' hAts is also prohibited, j and it will be at once confiscated when found worn by any one not entitled to1 * car it. * ~ f ADVERTISEMENTS. CGSDEMXED MTEAMEB FOB SALE. TTtTlLL b? sold at Public Auction to the hlghesk ff bidder at 12 o'clock, noon, on Monday, tlie 16th day of May, 1864, the United State* Steamer DARLINGTON, with the Boilers and Machinecry aa she now lays at this place. Sale to take puce at the Steamer. Terms Cash. Delivery immediately, JNO. H. MOORF., C'apt. <i ml A. (/. M. A.?ht g. M. Office, Beaufort, S. C., Mar. 19.1864.. H* i 3E* ^ FOB SALE .?Five Cane* Bologna Sea.-ages, in foil 33 eta. per lb.; without 30 ct*. per lb. Cases extra. W. C. Marshall, 14 '2d Ax?u?, New York. 77? PHOTOGRAPHS, he.? THE SUBSCRIBERS are now prepared to take Photograph*, . arte* de Visite, Meiaiuotypcs, View*, Ac., Ac., at Beaufort, S. C, near the Arsenal; on Folly Island, S.. C., near headquarter* ; at Jacksonville, Fla., in Masonic Hail, will open in a few day* at Hilton Heath over the office of the Palmetto Herald, next south of the Theatre, in a new building aoou to be completed. The best or vonx ouaramled.. NONE BUT FIRST CLASS ARTISTS EMPL( >YEI> Stereoscopic View* ofCampa, Landscapes, Buildings, etc., taken on Folly aud Morris Island*. Baufort, S. C., and Jacksonville. Fla., now for sale by roar. 12, tf. SAM. A. COOLEY, k Co. DR. W. 1L WALSH, Office No, 13, Sutler'* Row. A fhli supply of Drug*. Chemical* and Patent Medicines. Ang. 29, 1863.-tf Mtaaxui; whlv), ior rue t>y 0. W. Dfjtcis k Co.. No. 4, Sutlers Row. THE LITE, SCENES, ADVENTURES, SONGS, SERVICES. AND SPEECHES, <v of Private Mmcs 0'Suu.i, 47th N. Y. & Vol*. / ' "The Poet of Honor is the Private's station." With comic illustrations by Mullen. Price $12^ TU-T RECEIVED AT THE UNION SQUARE J STORE, next to the Post Office, the following military publications. We are constantly receiving new books aa fast as they are iaeued. Orders for books premptly executed. PATTENS INFANTRY TACTICS: compiled agreeably to the latest Regulation front the War Department, from standard military authority. By Lieut. CoL Geo. Patten. FAJ^JSS rUAUTlUAJLt ENGINEERING. Official report of the liege end redact* ion of Tort Pulaski. Georgia, February, March and April, IMS. By Brig.-Gcn. Q. A. Gillmore, U? 8. Vols. THE C. S. A., and the BATTLE of BULL RUN. By J. G. Barnard. A TREATISE- ON MILITARY LAW, and the Practice of Court* Martial. By Qspt. 8. V. Bcnet, Ordnance Department, U. 8. Army, RUDIMENTARY MILITARY SERIES of the use of Field Artillery on aervice. with especial reference to that ?f an Army Corps, By Taubert MANUAL OF INTERNAL RULES AND REOfcLATIOXg POR MEN?OF-WAR. By^ Com. U. S. Iatj, U. 8, N. HISTORY OF WEST POINT, and its . military importance daring the American Revolution, and the Origin and Progress of the United States Military Academy, By Captain Edward C. Boynton, A. M. W* hare also on hand au. Lick Smoking Tobacco, go lace Chewing " Meerschaum Pipes, Briar Wood Pipes, Cigar holders, Doininoe, Checkers, Elastics. Cork Screws, Razors, Razor Strops, Tape measures. Scissors, Pocket Knives, Drinking Cape. Tooth brashes, Pocket Combs, Sllass Inkstands, Blank Books, all kinds, Shaving Soap, Mathematical Instruments, Book Knives, Ivory, Perfumery, Gold Pens, Steel da. hotsgrsphie Albums, V 1 J Urawuig paper, uriawJi yuitrii, Crayons, variegated. Regulation Balls, White Gkm-s, Hosiery, Spelling Books, Arithmetics, Maps of Geo., Flo. oak S. C? Cribbsge Boards, 1 Playing Cards, Ink, hetographs ia great variety, linen Handkerchiefs, Tin Money Chests, Fancy Dressing Cases, Magnifying Glasses, Marin* Glasets, Charm Compasses, Razors, Bazor Strap*, k*. ha. BOUND NOVELS. Iroken Calnmns?Was He Successful?Light om Shadowed Paths ? Peculiar?Ines ? Whip, Hoe and Sword?My Farm at Edgewood ?Tales from the Opera?The Black Plnme?Border and Bastile? Qween Mab, etc., etc. /OSLPH H. SEA US.