December 24.—In promulgating President Lincoln’s preliminary proclamation of emancipation, General Banks, commanding the Department of the Gulf, issued an address to the people of Louisiana in order to correct public misapprehension and misrepresentation, for the instruction of the troops of his Department, and the information of all parties in interest.—(Doc. 86.)
—A letter from Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President of the rebel government, written on the 24th of December, 1860, was made public. In it occurs the following: “While I hope for the best, I am prepared for the worst. The election of Mr. Lincoln, I am well persuaded, is owing much more to the divisions of the Democratic party, and the disastrous personal strifes among its leaders at Charleston and at Baltimore, than to any fixed determination on the part of a majority of the people of the North to wage an exterminating war against Southern institutions. Disappointed ambition has much to do with the origin of our present troubles; the same cause will be greatly in the way of amicable and satisfactory adjustment. I can but believe that there is still enough patriotism in the land, North as well as South, to save the present Union under the existing Constitution, with all its guarantees and obligations, if the great heart of the nation can be touched and aroused. All that is wanting is a little time and patriotic forbearance.”—A brief skirmish took place in the vicinity of Munfordville, Ky., between a detachment of the Second Michigan cavalry, under the command of Lieutenant Darrow, and the advance-guard of the rebel forces, under General J. H. Morgan, resulting in a retreat of the latter with some loss.—(Doc. 88.)
—The obsequies of Rev. A. B. Fuller, late Chaplain of the Sixteenth regiment of Massachusetts volunteers, killed at Fredericksburgh, Va., took place at Boston, Mass.—A portion of Colonel Spears’s Eleventh Pennsylvania cavalry, had a spirited engagement at Joiner’s Bridge, four miles above Franklin, on the Blackwater River, Va., with a squadron of rebel cavalry and a body of infantry, whom he dispersed, capturing one man and horse, and three infantry soldiers and their arms.—Philadelphia Inquirer.
—A detachment of General Sherman’s expeditionary army, under the command of General M. L. Smith, destroyed a section of the Vicksburgh and Texas Railway, about ten miles west of Vicksburgh, and burned the stations at Delhi and Dallas (Doc. 91.)
