It is not advisable to follow closely the course of events at the locality during the next winter and spring, for the most of them were not important or interesting enough to be chronicled. Men and things settled down into a state of comparative quiescence under the new Government. While with some there was glad acceptance of the existing power, others, silently submitting to it, looked out, hopeful of soul for its overthrow, and secretly listened for news of victories to the United States armies at a distance. Tidings of all occurrences beyond the limits of the seceded States were meagre in quantity and obtained with difficulty, except so far as the few newspapers still published in the South, gave them. These papers had dwindled away in size, and of course had little room in their columns for news from the United States and from foreign lands, after printing matter of local interest. If any news from outside were published, which was thought to bear seriously upon the fortunes of the war, its proportions had to be shorn and its color changed to suit politic requirements. The _Richmond_ (Va.) _Examiner_ with its very able editorials by Mr. Daniel, was more in circulation than any other journal from a distance, and some persons counted themselves happy in the opportunity to peruse it. There was an independence in its tone that reminded Union men of former days of the Republic, and its zest was enhanced to their mental palates by its occasional fault-finding with those in authority. At length its dimensions were reduced by the necessities of the times to one-half sheet of very indifferent paper. If, as was sometimes the case, a few newspapers were smuggled into the town from the North by the underground railway _via_ Kentucky, and came into the hands of a Union citizen, they were counted as worth their weight in gold. He first devoured their contents in secret, then passed them covertly to a friend, and so they would continue their rounds among hungry readers. In like manner would be circulated any important news received by the “grapevine telegraph.” Such eagerness among Union men for information from without, was no doubt largely due to their hope of deliverance, but it was partly owing to their desire to know something of what was going on in the great world beyond the limits of the Confederacy. They felt like men in a prison, and to this day many of the current events in that world for more than two years are blank in the knowledge of persons in the South, who had been accustomed to keep pace with journalistic columns.