THE MARYLAND RAID.
FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.]
New York, July 16, 1864. Tuz important military news of the week is that General Sher- man has compelled the rebel General Johnston to abandon his formidable line of defence upon the Chattahoochie, and has crossed that river, which brings him within seven miles of Atlanta. The news is not official, but it comes through two independent channels, and seems to be authentic. There was a smart skirmish ; Sher- man took 2,000 prisoners, and it is said very many more ; the enemy burned the two bridges and cut loose their own pontoons, ' which they were unable to save. But Sherman crossed and estab- lished himself on the South bank. Atlanta is the terminus of four railways, a great depot of goods and munitions of war, has forges and factories, but it is a small town of only about 4,000 in- habitants, and the works, however well contrived, can hardly be so extensive that Sherman cannot at least wholly invest the place.
The other military news, if military it must be called, relates to the performances of the rebels in Maryland, and their sudden retreat therefrom. Should the war go on for two or three years longer, almanack-makers of the old-fashioned school might print along their July page, " Expect an incursion of rebel slaveholders about this time." Certainly it might in that case be expected, unless the Government leaves a competent army gif observation under a competent leader near the foot of the Shenandoah Valley, and unless Maryland and Pennsylvania organize their militia, and cease to depend on New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts in this respect. This time the invasion has been of short duration and little military significance, although for a few days the rebels had it pretty much their own way. As nearly as we have been able to discover they were 25,000 strong, and were under the com- mand of General Early. They said that there were 40,000 more under Longatreet and Hill ready to cross the Potomac at any moment ; but there are no facts which support this state- ment. They first showed themselves in force at Frederick- town on Saturday last (July 9th). General Wallace, igno- rant, as every one else seems to have been, of their numbers or their purposes, had yet come to the conclusion that they needed serious attention, and gathering hastily together such troops, hundred-day men and the like, as were within his reach, he crossed the Monocacy about 6,500 strong. The insurgents attacked. Wallace held them in check nearly the whole day with a loss to himself of 711,-311 killed and wounded, and 400 prisoners, and to the enemy of at least 730 killed and wounded, for r.3 many are now in our hands. But the fight revealed to him that he was opposing with 6,500 men, mostly raw recruits, nearly 20,000 of Lee's seasoned soldiers, and he therefore wisely retreated across the Monocacy and destroyed the bridge behind him. The effect of this announcement was to awaken anxiety in some breasts for Washington and Baltimore, which was just what the enemy desired. Apprehension was increased by the cutting of the telegraph wires, and the interruption of direct communication with the North. A certain Harry Gilmore, called by his Baltimore townsmen " the notorious,"—why I know not, unless that he is a " fire-eater," who likes his coals particularly hot,—took 125 picked horsemen, and adding to them 100 more Marylanders of his own kidney, galloped across the country to Gunpowder Creek, where the railway between Philadelphia and Baltimore crosses a long wooden bridge over Gunpowder Creek, and firing upon the train (it is a pretty way these " chivalrous" gentlemen have of firing upon trains filled with peaceful passengers), they stopped it, robbed the passengers of their money, the men of their watches and the women of their trinkets, pillaged the portmanteaus and travelling bags, took prisoner General Franklin, who, an invalid, was a passenger; and as the bridge was too strongly guarded for them to attempt to move upon it, they set the train on fire, reversed the engine, and in that way fired and partly destroyed the bridge. Gilmore, by the way, found friends and co-operators by the score on the train, as he would find them by the hundred and the thousand if he came to New York. The invaders also showed them- selves in the suburbs of Baltimore, where they burned and pillaged private houses, including that of Governor Bradford. They would not allow the ladies of the family to save an article of their own clothing or any of the Governor's private papers. They showed themselves in considerable force on the north side of Washington, and made an attack, but discovered that they had made a mistake at the same time. They expected to find only militia and invalids behind the works ; but two divisions of the the Sixth Corps and the Nineteenth Corps were there ; and when the rebels saw these well-known troops making a sortie upon them, they quickly went to cover, and in the night decamped. But meantime they had been roaming and robbing right and left. They entered towns and levied contributions; they stole horses, and cattle, and pigs, and chickens ; they relieved individuals of the burden of their pocket-books ; they took the clothes of the farmers' wives and daughters. Finally they departed, having well harried the border, having " conveyed" about 100,000 dols.; and many watches, and jewels, and some 2,000 head of tattle, with pigs and chickens in proportion, and having frightened many geese. All this while General Grant did not budge, and when they told him Washington was in danger he did not believe it.
The monstrous misrepresentation of affairs in this country which is not unfrequently made even in the British Parliament, and sometimes by men,—Earls, Baronets, and the like,—whose business it would seem to be to know better, has rarely excited our wonder and our mirth more than in the case of Sir Robert Peel's recent statement that there were " between 20,000 and 30,000 Irishwomen wandering without food and shelter through the streets of New York." Now Sir Robert Peel is a gentleman, although a wrong-headed one, as I venture to think, and without a doubt he believed what he said. But he would have been just as true, literally not figuratively just as true, if he had said that there were 20,000 Bengal tigers roaming the streets of New York for food. The trouble is quite the other way. There is food here and shelter, such food and shelter as they would not dream of en- joying in their own country, for thousands more of Irishwomen as well as men, if they will only come and do light work to earn it. Every one here knows this, and I know of my own knowledge that householders, and all people who are employers of unskilled labour, have the utmost difficulty in supplying their needs in this respect. Even before the war the rawest and greenest girl from Ireland or Germany had no difficulty in getting a place as housemaid at 5 or 6 dols. a month, with a comfortable room, and the same food as was placed upon her mistress's table. If she were apt to learn, a year would hardly pass before she could as easily command 7 dols. This was when our currency was gold ; and since the war wages have risen nominally, as all other prices have. In fact now, and for nearly two years' past, the demand for household labour has been so much in excess of the supply that it has been so difficult to get women competent to do house-cleaning, and even the meanest chars, that housekeepers who have not large establish- ments have been often put to the most serious inconvenience on this account. As to tolerably, very tolerably good servants, young women able to roast, and boil, and bake,without spoiling their viands, towash
and iron so that clothes from their hands can be worn, and to wait at table without insufferable offences against decency and order, they are so hard to get that they can pick and choose their em- ployers. When they apply for a place they usually walk in in wonderful bonnets, sit plumply down in presence of their possibly future mistress (" their lady " they call her), who is, you may be sure, far more soberly clad than they are, and catechize her as to the conveniences about the house, and make stipulations as to the number of what is to be regarded as the family. I am not sure that the conditions of engagement do not exclude future increase in this respect, in whatever manner. Their pretensions when com- pared with their capacity present a disproportion that is quite astounding. An Irish friend of mine said to me not long since, " What vexes me is that the creatyers should come over her and pretend to c000k (three " o's" feebly express his prolongation of the vowel, and four would fail to give an inkling of his scornful tone), when they never, one in twenty of them ever saw a plate till they came to this country." So much for women ; and as to men, a man who can do anything, if it be only to use a hoe and a shovel, if he presents himself here, will be run after by men anxious and able to give him money, food, and shelter, for the mere use of his muscles. Perhaps a New York householder, born and bred in this city, is not as good authority upon this subject as the Secretary for Ireland ; but whether or no, you have his testimony. One word, too, as to enlistments. You will see from the condition of things above set forth that no British subject on his arrival in this country need enlist for lack of employ- ment more to his liking ; and as to the draft, no man, whatever his nationality, can be drafted until after he has been made into an American citizen,—a wonderful process, which requires five whole years, and his own voluntary co-operation with the action of our sadly, ruinously contrived naturalization laws.
4 YANKEE.
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