se Galusha A. Grow of
Pennsylvania, who had lately knocked down Mr. Keitt of South Carolina in
a fisticuff encounter on the floor of the chamber, was chosen speaker,
over Francis P. Blair, Jr., of Missouri. Thaddeus Stevens of
Pennsylvania was the most prominent man in the body. Among many familiar
names in running down the list the eye lights upon James E. English of
Connecticut; E.B. Washburne, Isaac N. Arnold, and Owen Lovejoy of
Illinois; Julian, Voorhees, and Schuyler Colfax of Indiana; Crittenden
of Kentucky; Roscoe Conkling, Reuben E. Fenton, and Erastus Corning of
New York; George H. Pendleton, Vallandigham, Ashley, Shellabarger, and
S.S. Cox of Ohio; Covode of Pennsylvania; Maynard of Tennessee. The
members came together in very good temper; and the great preponderance
of Republicans secured dispatch in the conduct of business; for the
cliques which soon produced intestine discomfort in that dominant party
were not yet developed. No ordinary legislation was entered upon; but in
twenty-nine working days seventy-six public Acts were passed, of which
all but four bore directly upon the extraordinary emergency. The demands
of the President were met, with additions: 500,000 men and $500,000,000
were voted; $207,000,000 were appropriated to the army, and $56,000,000
to the navy. August 6 Congress adjourned.

* * * * *

The law-makers were treated, during their session, to what was regarded,
in the inexperience of those days, as a spectacle of real war. During a
couple of months past large bodies of men had been gathering together,
living in tents, shouldering guns, and taking the name of armies.
General Butler was in command at Fortress Monroe, and was faced by
Colonel Magruder, who held the peninsula between the York and the James
rivers. Early in June the lieutenants of these two commanders performed
the comical fiasco of the "battle" of Big Bethel. In this skirmish the
Federal regiments fired into each other, and then retreated, while the
Confederates withdrew; but in language of absurd extravagance the
Confederate colonel reported that he had won a great victory, and
Northern men flushed beneath the ridicule incurred by the blunder of
their troops.

A smaller affair at Vienna was more ridiculous; several hundred
soldiers, aboard a train of cars, started upon a reconnoissance, as if
it had been a picnic. The Confederates fired upon them with a couple of
small cannon, and they hast