Daniel Ruggles, of Massachusetts, a cadet of 1829, served in, and though only a junior captain for some time commanded, the 5th Infantry during the Mexican war, and was twice brevetted. In 1861 he was yet a captain and brevet-lieutenant colonel in that regiment. His having espoused the Southern cause may be accounted for by the fact of his having married a Southern lady, and being a slave proprietor. He is a man of fine personal appearance, of good ability, a scholar, and a polished gentleman, but perhaps too much of a martinet to become a distinguished general.
Samuel Cooper, of New York, a cadet of 1813, and consequently an old man, had for many years previous to the Secession been Adjutant-General of the U. S. Army. He has no military repute.
John C. Breckenbridge, of Kentucky, was for a few months a major of volunteers during the Mexican war, but has hitherto been known only as a hot political partisan.
Gideon Pillow, of Tennessee, acquired unenviable notoriety during the Mexican war, in which he served as major-general of volunteers, by the arrogance and tyranny of his conduct to those unluckily subjected to his command, and by his captiousness and insubordination towards his superiors. He was tried for appropriating to himself certain captured property, and was forced to disgorge his plunder; a grievance which he resented by preferring vexatious charges against General Scott, which caused that gallant old officer’s temporary removal from command. General Pillow subsequently made political capital out of his alleged services and trifling wounds, vigorously blowing his own trumpet everywhere and at all seasons with the unblushing impudence and inveracity characteristic of his legal profession. As it was notorious that when commanding at Vera Cruz he was so frequently shot at from the thickets by the volunteers of his command, that he was forced to forego his cool evening rides on the beach, his wounds were attributed by the army generally to his own men. Such being his antecedents, the fall of Fort Donelson, whereat he commanded, becomes intelligible enough, and it is a mystery how it came to be entrusted to him.
I am uncertain whether James B. Stuart, a cadet of 1834, and in 1861 a lieutenant in the 1st Cavalry; and John Bankhead Magruder, a cadet of 1826, greatly distinguished in the Mexican war, and in 1861 brevet-lieutenant-colonel and captain in the 1st Artillery—both of Virginia—are identical with the generals of the same names, but I presume so. In addition to these, and previously unknown to fame, may be mentioned:—Isaac Trimble, of Virginia, a cadet of 1818, who retired from the 3rd Artillery just thirty years ago, and has in the interim been the chief-engineer of various railways; Ambrose Pervell Hill, of Virginia, in 1861 a lieutenant in the 1st Artillery; and John H. Forney, of North Carolina, in 1861 a lieutenant in the 10th Infantry.
It would be inexcusable in this enumeration of Southern officers to omit the name of Raphael Semmes, formerly lieutenant in the Federal navy, who, as the commander of the ubiquitous Sumpter, has won renown, and inflicted losses on the enemy, quite incommensurate with the scanty means at his disposal. This gallant officer volunteered from the U. S. squadron, which had assisted in the capture of Vera Cruz in 1847, as aide to General Worth—the brilliant commander of what was known as the “fighting division” of Scott’s army—and was present at all the subsequent engagements on that line. I have a vivid remembrance of his tall lithe figure, fair, pleasant face, and the long curls of which he was as vain as a woman. He afterwards wrote a narrative of his campaign, which, as a literary composition, was not worse than might be expected from a young sailor more familiar with the cutlass or the marlinspike than with the pen.
We purpose continuing the subject with sketches of the Federal leaders, in an early number.
FOOTPRINTS OF THE NORTHUMBRIAN CELTS.
The traces of the ancient Celtic population of Northumberland appear chiefly in the northern part of the county, and mostly upon the lower slopes of the Cheviot Hills, a mountainous range extending from near Roxburgh, in Scotland, to the coast, at a length of about thirty-five miles. The height of the highest of those hills, distinguished as the “Cheviot,” rises at an elevation of 2856 feet. On nearly the whole of these hills are found remains conceived to have appertained to the Ancient Britons. The peculiarity which distinguishes these vestiges consists in the abundant use of large Cyclopean masonry instead of earthen bulwarks, as in the south of England, in the construction of the ramparts of the hill towns of the Northumbrian Celts, and of the habitations they comprehend. Tumuli, cairns, cromlechs, and stone circles are likewise found in the same district, together with large stones marked with a kind of hieroglyphic inscriptions which remain undeciphered, but which are conceived to have been the writings of the Druidic hierarchy of the Celtic tribes. Those rock inscriptions are likewise found in Cumberland, Ireland, Scotland, the Channel Islands, and at Carnac in Brittany; and even on one of the great masses of Stonehenge a hieroglyphic carving has been observed analogous in type to those mysterious inscriptions. Another interesting feature observable among the Cheviot hills consists in the appearance of ancient modes of cultivation; by which the hill-sides seem to have been rendered productive at a remote period. In these instances the acclivities of the hills have been scarped in terraces for the growth of the grain which supplied the numerous querns, or hand-mills, discovered among the Celtic remains. The research of Northumbrian antiquaries, furthered by the enlightened liberality of the Duke of Northumberland, has tended to throw considerable light upon the character of those remains by means of excavation and the investigation of the appearances thus revealed, which are being carried on in different sites among the hills, and promise to yield a rich harvest of archæological results.
The most important of these investigations has been made at Greaves Ash, near Lynhope, high up the Cheviot range, in the valley of the Breamish,