bound me to a Government for which my ancestors fought, and what ever may be the course of others, I shall feel it my duty to encourage the most persevering and determined resistance against the tyrants and usurpers of the Federal administration, who have blasted our hopes and are cruelly seeking to destroy the last vestige of freedom among us. If you would save yourselves from a species of carnage unexampled in the history of North America, but unequivocally invited in Mr. Lincoln's proclamation, let every man who is able to fight buckle on his armor, and without awaiting the slow and tedious process of conscription, at once volunteer to aid in the struggle against him. The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, and it cannot in the nature of things be possible that a just God will prosper the efforts of a man or a Government which has hypocritically pretended to wage war in behalf of the Constitution, but now thews off the mask and sets it utterly at defiance. No despot in Europe would dare to exercise the powers which Mr. Lincoln in less than two brief yards has boldly usurped. He has upended the writ of habeas corpus in regard to all persons who have been or may be imprisoned by military authority, and thus destroyed a right essential to the liberty of the citizen; a right which the mailed barons of England wrested by force from King John and inserted in the great charter of British freedom; a right which it caused centuries of contest to ingraft upon the British constitution; a right for which our fathers sternly struggled, and which is incorporated in every American constitution. He has called armies into the field without authority, according to his own acknowledgment, and has become a military dictator. He now claims the prerogative to abolish slavery without our consent, and if he can thus take our negroes, why may he not take our lands and everything else we possess and reduce us to a state of vassalage to which no parallel can be found save in the history of the Middle Ages.

THOS. A. R. NELSON.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
Springfield, Ky., October 5, 1862.-6 a.m.

GENERAL: I have kept your informed of our movements. The head of Donelson's division rested 6 miles in advance of this last night and the rear near this place. Withers' column was immediately behind and well up. Donelson will be within 4 miles of Danville to-night, possibly in the town. The rest of the wing encamp at corresponding distances. General Hardee encamped at Glenville last night; finds the dirt road since the rain very bad. I have turned him across on to this pike by a turnpike road which intersects at this point. He will arrive early this morning, but not until after the troops of the other wing have passed. Thinking his road might be bad, I sent the greater part of his wagon train in this road entirely ahead of Cheatham's command.

The cavalry under Wheeler and Wharton, after retiring the infantry from Bardstown, were ordered to cover our rear and retard the enemy as long as possible. They made their appearance near the Fair-Ground about-o'clock, coming in through a by-road near railroad. The head of their cavalry were in the position between Wharton and the town before he was advised of it; when advised he put his force in rapid motion to the town.

[L. POLK.]