indeed be delightful if there were any room to hope that the Washington authorities are prepared for such terms of peace as would allow the soldiers to disperse at once. Before the acclamations of armies were untied, when they lay confronted at Fredericksburg, a fine miliary band played in succession "Yankee Doodle," "Dixie," and other national airs. These were appropriately responded to by the two armies alternately, but when the band struck up "Home, Sweet Home," the opposing camps forgo their hostilities and united in vociferous tribute to the common sentiment.

OFFICIAL REPORTS.

General Hardee telegraphs that the enemy crossed at Springfield on the night of the 26th instant and moved northward in two columns on the morning of the 27th . He also reports that all attempts to cross the Combahee have so far failed. General and Beyond Sara and returned. Activity is reported on the Mississippi River--troops going up and down. Most of Thomas' army are reported to have marched west from Columbia to Clinton, on the Tennessee River. A portion of these forces, including A. J. Smith's, are said to be in the vicinity of Huntsville and Eastport. No change in the fleet off Mobile. The enemy are still leaving Pascagoula.

FROM CHARLESTON.

A dispatch from the Charleston Whig, dated the 29th, says the enemy's infantry are encamped near Ennes' Cross --Roads, on the road leading to Grahamville and on the road toward Sister's Ferry. They have wagon-trains with them. A reconnoitering force was reported without four miles of Robertsville on the 29th. Robertsville is fifty miles north of Savannah and five miles east of the Savannah River. A small party of Yankees landed on Little Britain Island, near Legare's, Saturday night and were driven off.

ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE.

"We have direct advices," says the Lynchburg Republican of the 27th instant, "from the Army of the Tennessee to the 13th instant through a private letter received in that city. General Beauregard would assume the command in person, and the army, it is stated was about to move, but in which direction was not known."

Richmond Whig contains the following:

GENERAL LEE AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.

We learn that the President did not send to the Senate yesterday, as was anticipated by some of our contemporaries, the nomination of General Robert E. Lee as commander-in-chief of the Armies of the Confederate States.

JACKSON, January 28, 1865.

Twenty-three houses, 600 bales of cotton, commissary, quartermaster's, and other stores were burned at Summit this morning. The fire was accidental. Summit is a station on the New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Railroad, seventy-five miles south of Jackson, in Pick County, Miss. Before the war it contained two hotels and twelve stores of various kinds.

E. O. C. ORD,

Major-General.

CITY POINT, VA., January 31, 1865-11 a . m.

Major General E. O. C. ORD:

Prepare your troops with six days' rations, four of them in haversacks, from Thursday next, preparatory to moving with all available forces at that time. Instructions will be sent to you to-morrow.

U. S. GRANT,

Lieutenant-General.