The writer of this note has recently travelled through a region larger than the whole of England, which a year before his visit was held by one hundred and fifty thousand rebels in arms, and with advantages for defensive warfare such as no country of equal extent in Europe possesses. In every mile of this road he saw traces of the desperate fanaticism of personal ambition and pride, reckless of the life and property of others, with which its defence had been conducted. And beyond it he found those who were re-establishing the supremacy of republican law in this land. He spent more than a week with them, and in that time he heard no complaint so frequent or so bitter as that against the whimperers and mischief-makers they had left behind. The health and patience of the men was a matter of profound astonishment to him. That the officers were many of them exceedingly unfit for their responsibility cannot be denied. In what army are not many of the officers found to be so? But even this was chiefly to be attributed to the very influence which, in its worst form, was made the cloak of the conspiracy which brought about the rebellion, and was commonly felt and said to be so. And thus the army, fighting the open, fights also with the insidious enemies of the country, and when it returns both will have been conquered. But if incompetency is common among State-appointed officers, what evidence does the condition of the army give of the action of great talent, integrity, industry, and patriotic zeal, in the manner in which it is provided for! Nowhere did the writer fail to find the men clothed and fed as never were soldiers clothed and fed in the pettiest frontier war before. He reached a division in the extreme advance; bivouacked in a swamp, its wounded picket-guardsmen were being brought in and cared for, methodically, and well; not with the refinement of a civilized home, but as wounded soldiers seldom have been in the history of wars, under the most favorable circumstances, before in the world. There was nothing which, thus situated, the surgeon could wish to have with him, which he had not. This division, since it came to the war, had marched over four thousand miles, and fought six great battles, and now here in the swamp, wading from hammock to hammock, the enemy in force in the next really dry land, the men looked as well in health, and as cheerful in spirits, as a company of harvesters at their nooning. They were carefully examined. Were they in want of clothing? No. Were they well shod? Yes. Were they well fed? They had full rations, and could ask for nothing better. What did they want? "To finish up the business they came here for, and go home." Nothing else. It was actually so there at the advanced post in the swamp, and it was so—it is so at this moment—wherever, on sea or ashore, the seven hundred thousand men now employed by our government are scattered at their work. By what