The people of Virginia display a noble spirit of patriotism if it were only in a right cause, which I cannot feel to be the case. The very soil seems to teem with armed men. Even the boys and the old men are enlisting, and the cry is ‘To Washington!’ Senator Mason addressed them on the route and said, ‘War has begun,’ and Jeff. Davis with two thousand Carolinians is already at Richmond. I regret the policy of the Government and think it is a grand mistake; but it is the most absurd dream in the world that Lincoln wishes to lead an army against the South. The truth is, Virginia’s sympathies are so much more with the South than with the Government, that although denouncing utterly both South Carolina and Secession, she preferred uniting her fortunes with them, to sustaining a policy which involved force against them to any degree at all. I am struck with the fact that at the South the loyal feeling goes to the State, while at the North it goes to the General Government. The radical difference of belief concerning the relations of the separate States to the Nation, is a principal cause in the whole trouble. The very same act which crazes Virginia, crazes the whole North in an opposite direction, and brings Pierce, Buchanan and Fillmore out in support of the Government. My friends (at Lynchburg) did not dare invite me to take part in the services, and the most atrocious sentiments were uttered in my hearing against Lincoln and the Yankees. Here all seems quiet--no cannon in the streets and few soldiers to be seen. Martial law is not proclaimed and there is a wonderful contrast to the feverish atmosphere of Virginia. Still I believe the Government is wide awake and more ready than people dream of. Communications have been open to Baltimore but broken up beyond. To-day Rev. Mr. P---- and I concluded to go there and try to make our way around through Harper’s Ferry and Hagerstown, but we found that since morning the Government had seized the depot and would allow no train to leave. So here we are. I despond very much about peace. Perhaps I am superstitious, but the two singular portents (which have so many parallels in history) of the first lesson last Sunday from Joel, and the co-incidence of the Baltimore fight with the anniversary of the battle of Lexington, dishearten me. The Potomac is now fortified and the Government must march its troops through Maryland or give up its Capital. Unless this should be seized soon, it will not be done; and if Maryland refuses passage through her borders to men and provisions, Maryland must be put down, if it burns her every town and makes the State a desert. Self preservation will extort that.