December 15.—President Lincoln’s Amnesty Proclamation was under consideration in rebel Congress. Mr. Foote presented the following preamble and resolution: “Whereas a copy of the truly characteristic proclamation of amnesty recently issued by the imbecile and unprincipled usurper who now sits enthroned upon the ruins of constitutional liberty in Washington City, has been received and read by the members of this House; now, in token of what is solemnly believed to be the most undivided sentiment of the people of the confederate States:
“Be it resolved, That there never has been a day or an hour when the people of the confederate States were more inflexibly resolved than they are at the present time, never to relinquish the struggle of arms in which they are engaged, until that liberty and independence for which they have been so earnestly contending shall have been at least achieved, and made sure and steadfast beyond even the probability of a future danger; and that, in spite of the reverses which have lately befallen our armies in several quarters, and cold and selfish indifference to our sufferings thus far, for the most part evinced in the action of foreign powers, the eleven millions of enlightened freemen now battling heroically for all that can make existence desirable, are fully prepared, alike in spirit and in resources, to encounter dangers far greater than those which they have heretofore bravely met, and to submit to far greater sacrifices than those which they have heretofore so cheerfully encountered, in preference to holding any further political connection with a government and people who have notoriously proven themselves contemptuously regardless of all the rights and privileges which belong to a state of civil freedom, as well as of all the most sacred usages of civilized war.”
Mr. Miles regretted that the gentleman from Tennessee had introduced such a resolution. The true and only treatment which that miserable and contemptible despot, Lincoln, should receive at the hands of this house was silent and unmitigated contempt. This resolution would appear to dignify a paper emanating from that wretched and detestable abortion, whose contemptible emptiness and folly would only receive the ridicule of the civilized world. He moved to lay the subject on the table.
Mr. Foote was willing that the preamble and resolution should be tabled, with the understanding that it would indicate the unqualified contempt of the House for Abraham Lincoln and his message and proclamation alluded to.
Mr. Miles said there would be no misunderstanding about that.
The motion was unanimously adopted.
Similar resolutions, offered by Mr. Miller of Virginia, went the same way.
—There were yesterday in the Libby Prison and its dependencies at Richmond, Va., over ten thousand abolition captives. In this number are included nine hundred and eighty-three commissioned officers, domiciled at the Libby under the immediate supervision of Major Thomas P. Turner. By the record it appears that nine were received on the fourteenth instant. Twelve died the same day. The arrivals for several days past have not been very numerous. On last Friday night, Captain Anderson, of the Fifty-first Indiana cavalry, (Streight’s command,) Lieutenant Skelton, of the Nineteenth Iowa regiment, (a redheaded, bullet-eyed, pestilential abolitionist,) escaped from the hospital of the Libby Prison by bribing the sentinel, one Mack, a member of the Tenth Virginia battalion of heavy artillery. This person was purchased for four hundred dollars.— Richmond Examiner.
—This night, about eight o’clock, Rosser’s brigade, of Stuart’s rebel cavalry, came upon the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, from the south, near Sangster’s Station, Va., and destroyed two bridges over Pope’s Run.—(Doc. 115.)
—Authentic information having been received that Acting Masters John Y. Beall and Edward McGuire, together with fifteen men, all belonging to the confederate States navy, are now in close confinement in irons at Fort McHenry, to be tried as pirates, our efficient and energetic Agent of Exchange, Judge Ould, notified General Meredith that Lieutenant Commander Edward P. Williams and Ensign Benjamin H. Porter and fifteen seamen, now Yankee prisoners in our hands, have been placed in close confinement and irons, and will be held as hostages for the proper treatment of our men.—Richmond Enquirer.
—A list of steamers destroyed on the Mississippi River since the beginning of the war, was made public. Over one hundred and seventy-five were burned or sunk.
