BLOOD-STAINED CONFEDERATE BATTLE FLAGS, CAPTURED DURING THE WAR. ketched by permission of the Government from the large collection in possession of the War Department, at Washington.

THE HIDEOUS BLACK FLAG.

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Zachary Rangers-and again: "Tyranny is hateful to the gods."

With the exception of the State colors, the Union flags bear fewer mottoes. Many are fashioned of the finest fabrics, touched with the most exquisite tints. They need no florid and sensational sentence. Enough, that they bear the potent and silent stars of indissoluble

union:

"When Freedom, from her mountain height,
Unfurled her standard to the air,

She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there;
She mingled with the gorgeous dyes
The milky baldrick of the skies,
And striped its pure celestial white
With streakings of the morning light;
Then, from his mansion in the sun,
She called her eagle-bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand,

The symbols of her chosen land."

Beside this Flag of the Republic, the Black Flag, borne at Winchester, with its hideous yellow stripe, and hellish sentence, "No Quarter," needs no comment. From floor: to nave, they droop everywhere, faded, tattered, bulletriddled, the flags of Freedom, and the ensigns of Slavery, defiant, yet doomed. On one side of the apartment, cases, divided into minute boxes, rise to the ceiling. Each one is large enough to take a flag tightly rolled. Over all hangs a curtain; and here these rags, which have outlasted the wasting march, the sore defeat, wait to tell their story in silence to coming generations.

The War Department is now divided into the following Bureaus:

Secretary's Office: The Secretary of War is charged, under the direction of the President, with the general control of the military establishment, and the execu tion of the laws relating thereto. The functions of the several Bureaus are performed under his supervision and authority. In the duties of his immediate office. he is assisted by a chief clerk, claims-and-disbursing clerk, requisition-clerk, registering-clerk, and three recording-clerks.

The Adjutant-General's Office is the medium of communication to the army of all general and special orders of the Secretary-of-War relating to matters of military detail. The rolls of the army, and the records of service are kept, and all military commissions prepared in this office.

The Quartermaster-General's Office has charge of all matters pertaining to barracks and quarters for the troops, transportation, camp and garrison-equipage, clothing, fuel, forage, and the incidental expenses of the military establishment.

The Commissary-General's Office has charge of all matters relating to the procurement and issue of subsistence-stores in the army.

The Paymaster-General's Office has the general direction of matters relating to the pay of the

army. The Surgeon General's Office has charge of all matters relating to the medical and hospital service.

The Engineer's Office, at the head of which is the Chief Engineer of the army, has charge of all matters relating to the construction of the fortifications, and to the Military Academy. At present, the Washington Aqueduct is being built under its direction. The Bureau of

LINCOLN'S SOLITARY WALK.

465

Topographical Engineers, at the head of which is the Chief of the Corps, has charge of all matters relating to river and harbor improvements, the survey of the lakes, the construction of military works, and generally of all military surveys.

The Ordnance Bureau, at the head of which is the chief of ordnance, has charge of all matters relating to the manufacture, purchase, storage, and issue of all ordnance, arms, and munitions of war. The management of the arsenals and armories is conducted under its orders.

The present building, still used for the War Department, is utterly inadequate to its necessities. Already its Bureaus are scattered in several transient restingplaces. In a few years they will be again concentrated in the magnificent structure now going up, for the combined use of the State, War and Navy Departments.

With the present War Department building will be obliterated one of the oldest land-marks of the Capital. All through the war of the Rebellion, it seemed to be the temple of the people, to which the whole nation came up, as they did to the temple at Jerusalem. What fates hung upon the fiats which issued from its walls! Hither came mother, wife, and daughter, to seek their dead, and to supplicate the furlough for their living soldier. What times those were, when the very life of the nation seemed suspended upon the will of the great War Secretary. I cannot look at the trees which arch the avenue between the War Department and the President's house, without thinking of those days when Lincoln took his solitary walk to and fro to consult with Stanton, his step slow, his eyes sad, over-weighted with responsibility and sorAnd going down Seventeenth street, who that

row.