GENERAL LEE AND THE OFFICER.

THE day after the battle of Spottsylvania Court House, General Lee was standing near his lines, conversing with two of his officers, one of whom was known to be not only a hard fighter, and a hard swearer, but a cordial hater of the Yankees. After a silence of some moments, the latter officer, looking at the Yankees with a dark scowl on his face, exclaimed most empuatically; "I wish they were all dead." General Lee, with the grace and manner peculiar to himself, replied, "How can you say so, General. Now I wish they were all at home, attending to their own business, leaving us to do the same." He then moved off, when the first speaker, waiting until he was out of earshot, turned to his companion and in the most earnest tone, said, "I would not say so before General Lee, but I wish they were all dead, and in hell !” When this amendment to the wish was afterward reported to General Lee, in spite of his goodness, he could not refrain from laughing heartily at the speech, which was so charac teristic of one of his favorite officers. >

A LONG WAY FROM HEADQUARTERS.

A TEXIAN Soldier, trudging along one day all alone, met a Methodist circuit rider, and at once recognized him as such but affected ignorance of it.

"What army do you belong to ?" asked the preacher. "I belong to the ―th Texas regiment, Van Dorn's army replied the soldier. "What army do you belong to ?" "I belong to the army of the Lord," was the solemn .cply "Well then, my friend," said the soldier drily, 'you'vo got a very long way from Headquarters!"

BELLE BOYD IN PRISON. *

I WAS thrust into a carriage; and the order, "Drive to the Old Capitol," was promptly given; but, before it could be obeyed, Lieutenant Steele, who had been very unceremo niously dismissed from further attendance upon me, stepped up and politely begged permission to wait upon me to prison. To a gruff refusal he firmly rejoined

"I am determined to see her out of your hands, at least." The carriage was driven at a rapid pace, and we soon came within sight of my future home-a vast brick building, like all prisons, sombre, chilling, and repulsive.

Its dull, damp walls look out upon the street: its narrow windows are further darkened by heavy iron stanchions, through which the miserable inmates may soothe their cap. tivity by gazing upon those who are still free, but whose freedom hangs but by a slender thread.

Such is the calm retreat provided by a free and enlightenea community, for those of its citizens who have the audacity to express their convictions of public justice.

Upon my arrival at the prison, I was ushered into a small office. A clerk, who was writing at a desk, looked up for a moment, and informed me the suprintendent would attend to my business immediately. The words were hardly uttered when Mr. Wood entered the room, and I was aware of the presence of a man of middle height, powerfully built, with brown hair, fair complexion, and keen, bluish-gray eyes.

Mr. Wood prides himself, I believe, upon his plebeian extraction; but I can safely aver that beneath his rough exterior there beats a warm and generous heart.

* From "Belle Boyd, in Camp and Prison." Written by herself.

"And so this is the celebrated rebel spy," said he. "I am verv glad to see you, and will endeavor to make you as comfortable as possible; so whatever you wish for, ask for it and you shall have it. I am glad I have so distinguished a personage for my guest. Come, let me show you to your room."

We traversed the hall, ascended a flight of stairs, and found ourselves in a short, narrow passage, up and down which a sentry paced, and into which several doors opened. One of these doors, No. 6, was thrown open; and behold my prison coll!

Mr. Wood, after repeating his injunction to me to ask for whatever I might wish, and with the promise that he would send me a servant, and that I should not be locked in as long as I "behaved myself," withdrew, and left me to my reflections.

At the moment I did not quite understand the meaning of the last indulgence, but within a few minutes I was given a copy of the rules and regulations of the prison, which set forth that if I held any communication whatever with the other prisoners, I should be punished by having my door locked.

There was nothing remarkable in the shape or size of my apartment, except that two very large windows took up nearly the whole of one side of the wall.

Upon taking an inventory of my effects, I found them to be as follows:-A washing-stand, a looking-glass, an iron bedstead, a table, and some chairs.

From the windows I had a view of part of Pennsylvania Avenue, and far away in the country the residence of General Floyd, ex-United States Secretary of War, where I had formerly passed many happy hours.

At first I could not help indulging in reminiscences of my last visit to Washington, and contrasting it with my present forlorn condition; but rousing myself from my reveric, I bethought myself of the indulgence promised me, and asked for a rocking-chair and a fire; not that I required the latter, for the room was already very warm, but I fancied a bright blaze would make it look more cheerful.

My trunk, after being subjected to a thorough scrutiny, was sent up to me, and, having plenty of time at my disposal, I unpacked it leisurely.

I rose

The first night in prison was a trying one to me. from my bed and walked to the window. The moon was shining brightly. How I longed that it were in my power to spring through the iron bars that caught and scattered her beams around the room!

The city was asleep, but to my disordered imagination its sleep appeared feverish and perturbed. Far away the open country, visible in the clear night, looked the express image of peace and repose.

"God made the country, and man made the town," I thought, as I contrasted the close atmosphere of my city prison with the clear air of the fields beyond.

What would I not have given to exchange the sound of the sentry's measured tread for the wild shriek of the ow! and the drowsy flight of the bat!

The room which was appropriated to me had formerly been the committee-room of the old Congress, and had been repeatedly tenanted by Clay, Webster, Calhoun, and other statesmen of their age and mark.

A thousand strange fancies filled my brain, and nearly drove me mad. The phantoms of the past rose up before me, and I fancied I could hear the voices of the departed

orators as they declaimed against the abuses and errors of the day, and gave their powerful aid to the cause of gencral liberty. They never dreamed that the very walls which reechoed the eloquence of freedom would ere long confine the victims of an oligarchy. Theirs was the bright day-ours is the dark morrow, of which the evil is more than sufficient. Those great men (for great they unquestionably were) lacked not the gift of prophecy, for they did not fail to discern the little cloud, then no bigger than a man's hand, which was gathering in the horizon--that dark speck which was so soon to generate a tempest far blacker than that from which the chariot of Ahab made haste to escape.

Throughout that long dreary night I stood at the window watching, thinking, praying. It seemed to me that morning would never come.

"Methought that streak of dawning gray

Would never dapple into day,

So heavily it rolled away

Before the estern flame."

But the morning came at last-the herald, let me hope, from a brighter world of another morrow to us. No sooner did the first faint light find its way through the windows, than I threw myself again upon my bed, and almost immedi ately sank into a deep sleep.

It was about nine o'clock, I believe, when I was aroused by a loud knocking at my door.

"What is it?" I cried, springing up.

"The officer calling the roll, to ascertain that no one has escaped."

"You do not expect me to get through these iron bars, do you?"