With deep grief the commanding general announces to the army the death of Lieutenant-General T.J.  Jackson, who expired on the 10th inst., at quarter-past three P.M.  The daring, skill, and energy of this great and good soldier, by the decree of an All-wise Providence, are now lost to us.  But, while we mourn his death, we feel that his spirit still lives, and will inspire the whole army with his indomitable courage and unshaken confidence in God, as our hope and strength.  Let his name be a watchword to his corps, who have followed him to victory on so many fields.  Let his officers and soldiers emulate his invincible determination to do every thing in defence of our beloved country.  R.E.  LEE, General.

It is probable that the composition of this order cost General Lee one of the severest pangs he ever experienced.

IX.

CIRCUMSTANCES LEADING TO THE INVASION OF PENNSYLVANIA.

The defeat of General Hooker at Chancellorsville was the turning-point of the war, and for the first time there was apparently a possibility of inducing the Federal Government to relinquish its opposition to the establishment of a separate authority in the South.  The idea of the formation of a Southern Confederacy, distinct from the old Union, had, up to this time, been repudiated by the authorities at Washington as a thing utterly out of the question; but the defeat of the Federal arms in the two great battles of the Rappahannock had caused the most determined opponents of separation to doubt whether the South could be coerced to return to the Union; and, what was equally or more important, the proclamations of President Lincoln, declaring the slaves of the South free, and placing the United States virtually under martial law, aroused a violent clamor from the great Democratic party of the North, who loudly asserted that all constitutional liberty was disappearing.

This combination of non-success in military affairs and usurpation by the Government emboldened the advocates of peace to speak out plainly, and utter their protest against the continuance of the struggle, which they declared had only resulted in the prostration of all the liberties of the country.  Journals and periodicals, violently denunciatory of the course pursued by the Government, all at once made their appearance in New York and elsewhere.  A peace convention was called to meet in Philadelphia.  Mr. Vallandigham, nominee of the Democratic party for Governor of Ohio, eloquently denounced the whole policy of endeavoring to subjugate the sovereign States of the South; and Judge Curtis, of Boston, formerly Associate Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, published a pamphlet in which the Federal President was stigmatized as a usurper and tyrant.  “I do not see,” wrote Judge Curtis, “that it depends upon the Executive decree whether a servile war shall be invoked to help