of presenting through your columns a short state- detail much exceeding thirty soldiers for labor on ment, which may the better enable your intelli- the works. gent readers to appreciate the merit of this attempt to cast ridicule upon the result of my efforts, made in the performance of an important duty, with which I happened to be entrusted.

It is quite evident, that the unaided labor of so small a force could have accomplished but little, towards putting a place of such an unavoidable extent, into a state of defence against a determined attack of any kind. However, the cor

Field fortifications are the creations of an emergency to serve some transient and tempo-dial cooperation of the Quarter Master's Departrary purpose, and are modified and ruled by many controlling circumstances, at one moment, fixing the fate of an army, at the next, a mere ditch and bank, divested of the remotest influence on the current of events. The form and extent of such works, which should never be made except for some direct and immediate end, chiefly depend upon the nature of the object to be defended, the means available for constructing the defences, and the character of the force from which an attack is anticipated.

The defences made at Point Isabel in April, 1846, and subsequently styled Fort Polk, were neither devised nor intended as a regular work, calculated to occupy a military point, so as to be capable of sustaining an investment by troops of all arms, but were in the first place, merely rough intrenchments made of waggons and other suitable objects at hand, embracing all existing and natural obstacles, which could be brought into the line of defence, covering the large extent of ground, which was unavoidably taken up in storing the munitions of war for the army, and the supplies upon which it had solely to rely for its mainteThis position was, however, at the time, only threatened with an attack by a guerrilla force of Mounted Rancheros, for the army itself, being only a day's forced march in advance, where it could watch the enemy's main body posted on the opposite bank of an intervening river, was ready to anticipate the movements of any large detachment, which he might make of his infantry and artillery. The intrenchments were, consequently, commenced with the intention of keeping, from the start, in the best possible state of defence against the sudden assault of such a force.

nauce.

But one small company of Artillery, out of the whole of our regular forces, was left at Point Isabel, to protect these stores and to construct these defences, when the mass of the army moved on to the Rio Grande, and took up its position opposite Metamoras. And this slender force was only afterwards increased about the middle of April by the arrival, by sea, of another artillery company. These two companies, constituting the entire force of regular troops, which were on duty at Point Isabel, until the arrival of a detachment of recruits from New York about the last of the month, did not, at any time, turn out a

ment, with the assistance of the numerous camp
followers (embracing many gallant gentlemen),
who were left at Point Isabel, when the army
moved, enabled the undersigned, who, as an en-
gineer officer was charged with the construction
of these defences, not only to replace the first line
of barricades by a continuous ditch and embank-
men, enclosing all the store houses, but, also to
construct some small redoubts in which heavy
pieces of artillery were placed in battery, so as to
command all the approaches to the place.

into such a condition by the first of May, as to
The work, by these united means, was brought
instil perfect confidence into its mixed and hete-
rogeneous garrison, made up of regulars, volun-
teers, camp followers, teamsters and laborers.
The necessity of its further prosecution towards
a regular and finished state, was removed by the
occurrence of events which carried the seat of
war across the Rio Grande. The result showed
that every object had in view, from the com-
mencement to the cessation of operations on this
work, was fully attained without withdrawing
even a single soldier from the main body of the
army, which was, all the time, wholly engaged
built, as was proved, to stand the investment of
an army with a park of artillery.
Respectfully, your obedient servant,

in the construction of Fort Brown, a work

JOHN SANDERS, Bvt. Major Engineers.

TO KOSSUTH.

O Kossuth, noble Kossuth! could the tears
Of nations shed for thee enlarge thy frame
From Schumla's prison, which, through coming years,
Shall stand the monument of Hapsburg's shame,
Thine eagle eye, before to-morrow's sun,
Would once more turn to thy dear Hungary
Far in the West, where shuddering upon
Her mountain's rugged rim the sunsets die.
That eye of fire! Oh may it once again

Inspire the mailed breasts of serried hosts,
And flush ten thousand brows with proud disdain
Of Austrian tyranny's vainglorious boasts.
May once more wave thy fiery plume on high-
A Morning star to night-steeped Hungary!

L. I. L.

A REVELATION OF THE SPIRITS.

The Church was but dimly lighted by a few flickering candles, and the faces of the company were strange to me. But I thought I had never Mr. Thompson,-I am not, nor have I ever seen such intellectual looking men before. Palbeen, a believer in ghosts, and I read with satis-lid they seemed, and venerable, like a convocafaction, in a recent number of your excellent pe- tion of the heroes that have been carved out of riodical, the review of Mrs. Crowe's Night- Carrara. Yet fleshly withal, only etherialized. Side of Nature," wherein that modern Pythoness And they moved about, though noiselessly, as is somewhat severely handled. But one cannot Canova's creatures would find it extremely diffidisbelieve the evidence of his own senses, and cult to do. I ventured to ask one of them the I must therefore beg your indulgence for a short nature and objects of the meeting, but he made space in your Messenger, to describe a very re- no recognition of me whatever, as if wholly unmarkable apparition, or rather assembly of ap- aware of my presence. I therefore seated myparitions, that I have recently witnessed. "See- self, and awaited the action of the assembly. ing is believing," has grown into an aphorism, For some minutes nothing occurred from which but seeing and hearing admit of no doubt what- I could divine the why and wherefore of so mysever. And while I draw for your benefit a picture terious a gathering, but then a tall and impresof the phenomenon in question, I shall endeavor sive figure advanced towards the pulpit, whose to recount what my ears heard. In this I will own I somewhat despair of success, for I am equally unskilled in Mnemonics and the Phonetic system of reporting, and can neither recollect a whole discourse like the guardsman of Frederick the Great, who repeated an entire play of Voltaire, after hearing it read from a place of concealment behind the arras.-nor could I put one down upon paper in those curious little arbitrary characters, like flies' legs, with which Mr. Bishop pleasantly beguiles his mornings in our State Convention.

I will premise what I have to say, however, with stating that I am a teetotaller, lest my sketch may be set down as "a vision of the over-heated brain" after an indulgence in a bottle or so of best Amontillado. It may be well enough to say, also, that I reject the faith of Mesmerism and hold Mr. Spencer and all his kidney in disrepute. Skeptical to this extent, I think I may appeal with confidence to your readers for their entire belief in the following narration.

majestic countenance was familiar to me. Many years had flown since I had seen it, but the features were the same, except that they seemed glorified by some wondrous transfiguration. One look satisfied me that the person was none other than the shade of a former illustrious Chief Justice of the United States.

Upon this I began to examine a little more curiously into the faces of the rest of the company. Here and there I recognized others that I had seen in days past, and a few whose lineaments are preserved to us on canvas among the Patres conscripti. I marvelled more and more, as I came to the conclusion, that the body in whose august and ghostly presence I was seated, could be none other than the Virginia Convention of 1829-30.

Yet for what purpose had these canonized men burst the cerements of the tomb and revisited the scene of their former labours? Why had they come together by the "glimpses of the moon" to hold their ghostly counsel? I was weary of conjectures, long before there was a word spoken to end them.

Some two weeks since, I was quietly walking down Broad street, at a somewhat late hour of the night, when my attention was arrested by the| It did not escape my attention, held as I was unusual appearance of lights, though faint ones, in agitated suspense by the novel scene before in the old African Church. As I drew nearer, me, that none of those members of the old Conthere seemed to be a group of persons entering vention who yet survive, were among the figures the front door of the building, and I could not present. Each individual was a goblin, and yet, but conclude that some matter of special interest as I said before, not absolutely impalpable. The had called the citizens together. The hour was assembly was of course smaller than it had been past midnight—the last gas-lamp had been ex- aforetime, yet more thau a quorum were in attinguished as the moon showed her waning disk tendance. over Church Hill, and the most slumberous stillness reigned around. I walked up to the main entrance, with some little curiosity, not at all lessened by the silence that seemed to pervade the building itself. There was neither sound of human voices nor of human footsteps within. By this time, my desire to solve the mystery became eager, and I at once eutered.

By and by, I began to perceive that disquietude rested upon their spirits, for the expression of their countenances was very sorrowful. Such an aspect wore Hamlet the Dane, as he appeared to his irresolute son upon the ramparts of Elsinore, or the wo-begone messenger that pulled Priam's curtain at the dead of night.

At last, the Convention was called to order by

"How have we waited, Mr. President, before coming together to enter our unhappy protest against the doings of these microscopic Consti

the sepulchral voice of a phantom-like chairman, | would be composed of such material as we have and there rose to address them a figure of most seen in it. Fifteen-shilling lawyers did not in extraordinary appearance. It was tall and thin- our day tinker the political machine. When I length, I might almost say, without breadth or hover around the debates of this gathering of thickness-and its face was sad to a degree be- little men, I am reminded of the account given yond even any of its lachrymose colleagues. But by an old friend of mine, one Captain Lemuel there flashed from beneath the brows an eye so Gulliver, of his visit to a certain kingdom where glittering and yet so subduing, that the beholder the pigmies did abound. was by turns fascinated and overpowered by its influence. The gestures this umbral orator employed were few, the most frequent being a singularly expressive vibration of the fore-finger of tution-makers, for the action of our colleagues the right hand, a long and skinny finger, which vibration, like that of Lord Burleigh's head in the play, indicated whole sentences of meaning. An indescribable feeling of terror crept over me as this figure arose. I was haunted as by some horrible nightmare-an avenging Nemesis had seized upon me—the figure was the Ancient Mariner and I was "one of three," and though I strove to escape, I found the effort unavailing-sity that we cannot withstand.

"I could not choose but hear."

There was something, too, in the tones of the speaker's voice that exerted a powerful charm. At one time shrill almost to a painful extent, then suddenly relapsing into a strain of unearthly sweetness, it ran the whole gamut of articulate music, with an ease and brilliancy that I never heard from mortal lips. The effect was such as we might fancy from an orator combining the better elements of Whitfield and Patrick Henry.

This figure was clad in a ridiculous garment of white flannel, which swayed to and fro with every gesture, and gave him still more the look of a wanderer from the "ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."

But I must proceed, in accordance with my promise, to give you, as far as I can, the remarks of this singular orator.

46

who are yet among the living! You, and I, and all of us, might have lain undisturbed, indeed, if the excellent members of this Convention, who yet walk the earth, had lifted up their voices against the nefarious projects of our degenerate successors. But, sir, they sit supinely while they should cry aloud and spare not,' and we come together now to speak our minds as by a neces

"Alas, sir, what sins of omission and commission are there of which these men have not been guilty? I shall not here enter upon the catalogue. Time, sir, would fail me-the crowing of the cock would disperse us, before I could narrate the half of them. The great changes which these radicals would effect in the organic law-the stains they would cast upon the ancient escutcheon, must pass unnoticed. I must use, here, more than Spartan brevity, although I am too apt to run into the garrulity of threescore, and without the aid of an Epaminondas to lengthen my monosyllables. It may suffice to recount the injuries they have inflicted on our hapless memories, whereby we stalk abroad at midnight and caunot rest.

66

Sir, the first and chief of these injuries is a flagrant violation of an old commandment, which says thou shalt not steal.' If any grand jury in this commonwealth should take in hand the larMr. President," said he, "it is a grievance of cenies that have been committed, to our wrong no ordinary character that can call from the tomb, and detrimeut, by the small sages of this new spirits that have long enjoyed its repose. But, sir. Convention, its session could be protracted to as the evil times upon which our good old Common- great a length as that of the Convention itself. wealth has fallen, have surely enough of alarm It was but yesterday that a certain learned Thein them to vex the shades of the departed. It ban there did wilfully and feloniously steal and is not therefore remarkable that we are here to appropriate to himself many parts of an arguconfer together in our ghostly perturbation. How ment or speech, the rightful property of a distinindeed, sir, could we lie quietly in our graves, while such scenes are enacting in the halls of our former triumphs, while the iconoclasts are shattering the idols of our former veneration?

guished gentleman formerly, (during his life-time,) of this city. Another had previously stolen the entire train of reasoning which had been elaborated with much thought by the great orator of · Sir, I remember to have predicted when this the West. Nor have there been wanting those body was convened in flesh and blood, that it who have descended to the petty-larcenies of would not be twenty years before another Con- purloining tropes and appropriating figures, tricky vention was called. But it had not then entered fellows indeed, who having possessed themselves my mind, no foreshadowing of the future had of a rhetorical ruby or a poetical pearl belonging given me an inkling, that this new assembly to somebody else, forthwith, like the pickpockets

dendi?

66

of Cheapside, tear it from its original setting and his crime, I would hand him over to the execuparade it as their own. tioner to be cut off without benefit of clergy. But they have offended sorely in another "Out of this villainous plan of reporting, Mr. respect. There be those, Mr. President, who President, has grown the most extraordinary evil have sought to imitate us in that assembly-who, of the day-a huge sheet called the Suppleas my lord Hamlet said of players he had seen, ment,' which has overspread Virginia, as the loneither having the accent of Christians, nor the custs overran Egypt of old. It appears every gait of Christian, Pagau, nor mau,' have endeav-third day, and, sir, the third-day ague and fever ored to play the parts which some of you, my is a trifle to it. It must inevitably weaken the compeers, so heroically sustained. I know not, treasury by depletion if not shortly arrested, and, sir, if there be one among them that imitates me, alas, what styptic, what eau brocchieri shall we if indeed there was anything in my career worthy find of adequate virtue to staunch the flow? of imitation, but should there be such a person. What in such a case shall be the methodus meI trust that he will have better success than those bungling copyists I have noticed, who have suc- Mr. President, let me ask, what is a 'Supceeded only in reproducing the blemishes of their plement?' What is the proper definition of the models and exaggerating them into faults. It word? I find it, by reference to as good an edihas been some time, sir, since I read my Virgil, tion of Johnson's Dictionary as can be printed in but I have not forgotten the little Iulus following the city of London, to be given thus- SUPPLEfrom the flaming city, non passibus æquis, the MENT, an addition to any thing by which its defootsteps of his sire. fects may be supplied.' Applying this definition "These things have been distressing enough to the Supplement of which we speak, we may to me, harassed as my spirit has been, with other regard it as an addition to the Convention, by causes of vexation. Sir, the shade of Samuel which its defects may be supplied. Sir, if this Johnson is said to have appeared to the remorse- Supplement is to be continued until it supplies ful Boswell, irate and unappeasable, by reason the defects of the Convention, in the name of of that wonderful biography which we have all Heaven when will it stop? Will it be during the read so frequently; how much more should I present century? Shall not the printer hand not be moved with anger on account of that dis-down his contract to his remotest posterity? Can torted likeness of me which au insatiate book maker has recently put forth? The book is called a Life; it should rather be styled a death. sir. I am ignorant of the number of editions through which the thing has passed, but if they attempt another, I will haunt author and publisher through the residue of their natural lives; Why, here is a copy of this Supplement"—and there shall be peace of mind for them never again; the tall, thin figure drew from the pocket of its Macbeth shall sleep no more! white flannel gown a number of the precious "I have not yet done, however, with these publication. But the cause which had been poconstitution-mongers. Not satisfied with taking tent enough to vex the departed, and call up other people's ideas and drawing them out to an spirits from the grave, had its usual effect upon interminable length, they have resorted to a new-the living. No sooner had the fatal sheet been fangled system of reporting by which they be produced, than a lethargic influence seemed to stow all their tediousness upon an already afflict- pervade the atmosphere-I fell into a state of ed and suffering people. By this system not one coma,-a sleep so profound, so overpowering, syllable of nonsense escapes. It is called, I believe, the Fonetic system, and it aims also at a new method of spelling, by which the good old English of our fathers is to be twisted out of all manner of shape. Sir, the new orthographers could ever have produced it. How long I slept, publish a journal called the Fonetic Nuz,' iu I know not. It could not have been very long, which their mode of mutilating the language is carried out. If I were autocrat for a day, should so settle the law as to make short work of them. The first offence of this character against the integrity of our mother tongue, I would visit with the knout, the thumb-screw, the bastinado; the second I would make punishable by the peine forte et dure; and if the culprit still persisted in

VOL. XVII-41

it be hoped for before the end of all things, or shall it be only coeval with the Greek Kalends? Sir, if it is to supply the defects of the Convention, it will continue forever,

..

that

'Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis ævum.'

"poppy, nor mandragora, Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,"

for when I awaked it was yet dark. But the assembly had vanished into thin air and left behind no trace of their singular meeting. Slowly I walked to my home, pondering much on the ghostly oration I had heard, and of which I have here given you so meagre and unsatisfactory a sketch.

X. Y. Z.