nd of these
hardy and devoted soldiers.

"Trusting that this letter may be made part of your answer
to Mr. Wickliffe's resolutions, I have the honor to be,

Very respectfully your most obedient servant,
DAVID HUNTER, _Maj.-Gen. Commanding._"

"This missive was duly sent, with many misgivings that it
would not get through the routine of the War Department in
time to be laid before Congress previous to the adjournment
of that honorable body which was then imminent. There were
fears; too, that the Secretary of War might think it not
sufficiently respectful, or serious in its tone; but such
apprehensions proved unfounded. The moment it was received
and read in the War Department, it was hurried down to the
House, and delivered, _ore retundo_, from the clerk's desk.

"Here its effects were magical. The clerk could scarcely
read it with decorum; nor could half his words be heard
amidst the universal peals of laughter in which both
Democrats and Republicans appeared to vie as to which should
be the more noisy. Mr. Wickliffe, who only entered during
the reading of the latter half of the document, rose to his
feet in a frenzy of indignation, complaining that the reply,
of which he had only heard some portion, was an insult to
the dignity of the House, and should be severely noticed.
The more he raved and gesticulated, the more irrepressibly
did his colleagues, on both sides of the slavery question,
scream and laugh; until finally, the merriment reached its
climax on a motion made by some member--Schuyler Colfax, if
we remember rightly--that 'as the document appeared to
please the honorable gentleman from Kentucky so much, and as
he had not heard the whole of it the Clerk be now requested
to read the whole again'--a motion which was instantaneously
carried amid such an uproar of universal merriment and
applause as the frescoed walls of the chamber have seldom
heard, either before or since. It was the great joke of the
day, and coming at a moment of universal gloom in the public
mind, was seized upon by the whole loyal press of the
country as a kind of politico-military champaign cocktail.

"This set that question at rest forever; and not long after,
the proper authorities saw fit to authorize the employment