As for current literature and science, periodicals and new books, they found no access at all to the place from abroad. The only volumes recently published, copies of which had circulation were, “A Strange Story,” by Bulwer, and a translation of Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables.” These had been re-printed at Richmond, and were remarkably inferior in their mechanical execution. The paper on which they were printed and the typography vied in poverty and unhappiness. The covering was of wall-paper with very large figures, the mutilation of which, in adapting the binding to its use, added to the grotesque appearance of the books. News was still given by authority. The community would be told of a battle somewhere, in which many “Yankees” were killed, wounded and taken prisoners, and the Confederate losses were relatively small. These reported victories, with their great disparities in results, occasioned, as did the news from Corinth, much open joy on the one hand and secret incredulity on the other. They who doubted and still clung to the Union, although reduced in numbers, were not so crushed in spirit as to sulk, Achilles like, in their tents, but they sought one another’s company, listened to news from the United States, brought in by adventurous runners, discussed the situation and probabilities, and encouraged each other to steadfastness. Sometimes the national heavens wore to them an intense gloom, relieved by but few dim rays of hope. But at one time their hope grew very bright, only to suffer a fatal eclipse. No occurrence of the war gave the Union people of East Tennessee such disappointment as the failure of General McClellan’s Peninsular campaign. In their imaginations, “Little Mack” was the hero of the epoch, the Alexander who would cut the Gordian knot of the rebellion, the American Cæsar who would shortly capture the insurgents’ capital and proclaim to the nation, “_Veni, vidi, vici_.” And when they learned the campaign’s result, they did so with more grief and discouragement than was felt elsewhere in the land, because of their isolation from sympathy and their unfriendly environment.