BLOCKADE. This closing of a port of an enemy to all commerce, which has been defined by some writers as the conquest by a belligerent of the naval territory of his enemy around the place or port which he wishes to close to commerce, was reduced to precision by the Congress of Paris. That body, consisting of the representatives of the principal powers of Europe, after discussion, pledged their Governments to observe this principle relative to blockades: "Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective; that is to say, maintained by forces sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy." This principle first became a part of maritime law in the war declared by Great Britain and France against Russia in 1854.

In a declaration relative to neutral rights, concerted between the cabinets of Paris and London, and officially published on the 29th of March, 1854, they proclaimed their rights, as powerful belligerents, to prevent nentrals from violating every effective blockade which should be maintained by a sufficient force before the forts, harbors, and coasts of an enemy. So far as regards the manner of conducting the blockade, it was determined as follows: "Every blockade, to be respected, should be effective," etc. The violation of the blockade consisted as well in an attempt to enter the port as in an attempt to go out from the same, after the declaration of the blockade, except, in the latter case, that this should not embrace a vessel light or loaded before the blockade, in the interval fixed by the commander of the blockading squadron-an interval which should always be sufficient to protect, in good faith, the interests of navigation and commerce. Besides, a blockade was not to be considered as known by a vessel approaching the blockaded port, until a special notice thereof had been inscribed upon the vessel's register or papers by one of the vessels forming the blockade. The consequences of this agreement between the two cabinets were, that any point of an enemy's territory could be blockaded; that a notice of the blockade should be given to each neutral vessel attempting to enter a blockaded port, although her Government should have been previously formally notified thereof; and that every blockade should be maintained with sufficient force. Thus paper or cabinet blockades were suppressed. These consisted in a simple diplomatic notice, declaring that such or such a place was blockaded.

This form of blockade was first introduced by Holland as far back as 1584. For the last one hundred and fifty years that she has enjoyed the first rank at sea, Great Britain has followed the same system, but developing it for her own benefit, so that, whenever she happened to be at war, the position of neutral nations became more precarious than that of the enemy himself. The right of blockade had also received extension in complete opposition to the most fundamental principles of international law.

In her wars with Napoleon I., the whole French coast was declared under blockade by Great Britain.

The proclamation was notified to all the neutral nations, who thenceforth must abstain from any trade with the territory thus placed under interdict. Such is what has been described as the paper blockade.

The proclamations of President Lincoln, declaring the ports of the seceded States blockaded, were issued on the 19th and 27th of April.

The Courts of Great Britain and France determined to assume a strict neutrality. The Queen issued her proclamation, and the Emperor also made a public notification thereof. Assuming this ground, both North and South were regarded as belligerents, and treated as such. Hence it became the duty of those nations to respect the blockade, if it was consistent with the principles promulgated by them in 1854, and subsequently ratified by the European powers in 1856.

In the case of Great Britain, letters were addressed by merchants of Liverpool to Lord John Russell on the 29th of August and 4th of September, stating that they held it in contemplation to fit out a number of vessels for the purpose of trading with the port of New Orleans and other ports of the United States of America; and that, looking to the undisturbed state of friendly relations between her Majesty and the United States, they apprehended that British ships had a right, under the law of nations, upon the strict principle of reciprocity, to enter into and depart from the ports and harbors of the United States.

They also asked and expressed the hope that these vessels would be protected by her Majesty's cruisers; but that, if such protection, from reasons of State policy, should be withheld, they would be prepared to defend themselves as best they might in the pursuit of their legitimate trade, and that all parties hindering them in the same would become responsible for the consequences.

They contended that the blockade of certain ports of the United States, as against the ships of Great Britain, was an infringement of international law, nugatory and unavailable, and claimed the protection of their Government, and at the same time asked permission to defend themselves in case of need.

Lord John Russell, through his secretary, replied in these words:

Understanding, from the tenor of your letters, that the ports to which your vessels are to proceed are ports which are or may be blockaded by the naval forces of the United States, Lord Russell directs me to warn you of the serious consequences which the measures contemplated, as stated in your letters, will entail on all concerned therein, and to inform you that her Majesty's Government will not afford the slightest protection or countenance to the projected enterprise.

The United States and the so-called Confederate States are engaged in a civil war, and her Majesty's Government have recognized that state of things, and have taken up a position of neutrality between the

The facts set forth in the President's proclamation, with the assertion of the right of blockade, amount to a declaration that civil war exists.

Blockade itself is a belligerent right, and can only legally have place in a state of war; and the notorious fact that immense armies are in hostile array against each other in the Federal and Confederate States, the latter having organized a Government and elected officers to administer it, attests the Executive declaration that civil war exists; which, if it must go on, can only be governed by the laws of war.

The right to proceed against privateers, under the laws of the United States, as pirates, does not militate with these views. A sovereign nation, engaged in the duty of suppressing an insurrection of its citizens, may, with entire consistency, act in the twofold capacity of sovereign and belligerent, according to the several measures resorted to for the accomplishment of its purpose. By inflicting, through its agent the judiciary, the penalty which the law affixes to the capital crimes of treason and piracy, upon those who shall be found guilty of levying war against the nation, or of committing depredations upon its commerce, it acts in its capacity as a sovereign, and its courts are but enforcing its municipal regulations. By instituting a blockade of the ports of its rebellious subjects, and thereby interdicting their commercial intercourse with the world, and enforcing this measure by capturing its vessels and cargoes wheresoever found, and by capturing the ves sels of all nations that shall violate or attempt to violate the blockade imposed, or shall supply or attempt to supply them with any means whatever to enable them to continue their rebellion, the nation is exercising the right of a belligerent, and its courts, in their adjudications upon the captures made in the enforcement of, this measure, are organized as courts of prize, governed by and administering the law of nations.

The question was also separately raised, whether the public disturbances existing, constituted a state of war under the law of nations. In the District Court of New York it was maintained that a state of war did exist, and, under the law of nations, the rights in a war waged by a Government to subdue an insurrection or revolt of its own citizens or subjects, were the same in regard to neutral Powers as if hostilities were carried on between independent nations, and applied equally in captures of property for municipal offences or as prizes of war. It is sufficient to establish the legality of the blockade to show that the ports blockaded were under the power and use of the enemies of the United States. So far as their own acts could make them so, the insurgents who held these ports were as alien and foreign to the United States Government as if they had declared themselves citizens and subjects of various South American States. They thus made themselves avowed enemies of the United States, and were waging a war for the dis

memberment of the nation and destruction of the Government. No pretension on their part, however, can change the intrinsic nature of things, and transform the residents of particular States into any thing else than citizens and subjects of the United States. As such they were subordinate to its Constitution and laws, in regard to which there were no State lines. State sovereignty was a nonentity. The whole extent of the country was one nation and one Government. The outbreak in the Southern States, therefore, the Judge considered an open and flagrant act of civil war against the United States. "The President possessed full competency, under the Constitution and existing laws, to call into service and employ the land and naval forces of the United States to put down this rebellion, and had rightly the power to establish blockades of ports held by the insurgent enemies, and enforce those blockades according to the law of nations."

A question was also raised, whether a citizen of the Confederate States, being also a citizen of the United States, had a right to come into a prize court and make claim to a vessel and cargo, and establish that the vessel was not attempting to run the blockade. This was denied on the ground, that the object of all hostilities was to cripple the resources of the opposing party, whereas the return of the vessel to the owners in such case would be adding wealth to them, and thereby add to their power to cripple the resources of the Government. (FOR STONE BLOCKADE, see CHARLESTON.)

BOONE COURT HOUSE. At this little village, the capital of Boone Co., Virginia, on the Little Coal River, 245 miles west of Richmond, a skirmish took place on the 1st of September, between the Confederate and Federal troops, which resulted in the rout of the former, with a loss of 30 killed, a large number wounded, and forty taken prisoners. None of the Federal troops were killed, and but six wounded. The village was burned by the United States troops.

BOSQUET, PIERRE FRANÇOIS JOSEPH, a marshal of France, born at Mont de Marsan, in the department of Landes, France, Nov. 8, 1810, died at Pau, Feb. 4, 1861. Marshal Bosquet was educated at the Polytechnic schools of St. Cyr and Metz, and in 1834 sent as second lieutenant in the 10th Regiment of Artillery to Algeria. In that country he served in twenty campaigns, rising by successive promotions to the rank of general of division. The Zouaves, or chasseurs d'Afrique, that formidable corps which accomplished so much in the Crimea and in the Italian war, were first organized by him, in part from natives of Algeria, and instructed in a system of tactics which enabled them to cope successfully with the Arab and Berber bands of the mountains of Algeria. He returned to France in 1853. In the Crimean war he was placed in charge of the 2d division of infantry, in the "army of the Orient," and Marshal St. Arnaud testified that his skill decided the bat

tle of the Alma. At Inkermann he also rendered efficient service, for which he received the thanks of the British Parliament and high honors from the Sultan of Turkey. On the 23d of February, 1855, he stormed the enemy's works on one side of the harbor of Sebastopol. On the 5th of June he aided in storming the redoubts of the Mamelon Vert. In the charge on the Malakoff he was wounded by a shell and borne from the field, as it was supposed, mortally wounded. His vigorous constitution, however, enabled him to rally, and regain partial, though never complete, health. He was chosen in 1856, on his return to France, Senator, and in March, 1857, Marshal of France. Queen Victoria bestowed on him the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in 1855, in token of her appreciation of his abilities as a commander; and Napoleon III. gave him the order of the Legion of Honor the same year. No one of the marshals had so completely won the love of the French people, and it was with great sorrow that they learned in the Italian campaign that their favorite general was incapacitated by ill health for leading the army. BOWLING GREEN has been a flourishing town. It is the capital of Warren County, Kentucky, situated on the Barren River, an affluent of Green River, 145 miles southwest of Frankfort. Its situation is at the head of navigation. Steamboats of medium size make regular passages, in all stages of the water, hence to Louisville. Population in 1860, about 3,000. It was, in 1861, a point of much strategic importance. Being at the junction of two Kentucky railroads which enter Tennessee, it possessed facilities for transportation to an almost unlimited extent, and could secure supplies to the full capacity of the Confederate States to spare. The approaches to the town can be commanded by a small force, as the railroad crosses a bridge over Barren River. General Buckner with a force of nearly ten thousand men occupied the town in September.

It was his plan to march upon Louisville without delay, after breaking up the encampment at Camp Boone, but he was delayed by the tearing up of a portion of the railroad track near Cave City, by which the train drawing a portion of his troops was thrown from the track. Subsequently, it became the head-quarters of a large Confederate army, assembled to defend the approach to Nashville. It was estimated, at one period, at 25,000 men. By the capture of Fort Henry, the flank of the army stationed here was turned, and they were forced to evacuate the town. A large body of the troops, under General Buckner, retreated to Fort Donelson, and were made prisoners on the surrender of that position in February, 1862.

BRIGGS, GEORGE NIXON, LL.D., an American statesman and philanthropist, born in Adams, Mass., April 12, 1796, died at Pittsfield, Mass., Sept. 12, 1861. His father served under Stark and Allen at Bennington. At the age of 13, he was apprenticed to a hatter at

White Creek, N. Y., where he remained for two years, when an elder brother had him taken from the shop and sent him to an academy for a year. Notwithstanding the death of this brother at the close of that year, young Briggs resolved to obtain a professional education, and at the age of 16 commenced the study of law, which he prosecuted for 5 years, when he was admitted to the bar of Berkshire Co., and soon distinguished himself as an advocate, and in 1827, in the defence of a Stockbridge Indian, who was tried for murder at Lenox, established his reputation as one of the ablest criminal lawyers in the State. In 1830 he was elected to Congress from the Berkshire district, and was reëlected for six successive terms. Here he soon became known as an able and efficient legislator, and an eloquent and effective debater. In 1843 he was elected Governor of Massachusetts, and was continued in office by annual reëlection till 1851. During his administration, the murder of Dr. Parkman by Prof. Webster occurred, and the most extraordinary efforts were made to induce the Governor to extend the executive clemency to the wretched offender, either in the way of pardon or commutation of sentence. To a person of Gov. Briggs' amiable disposition the trial was a severe one, but believing that the good of the community required the maintenance of the law and the execution of the offender, he was firm and refused to interpose. On his retirement from the gubernatorial office in 1851, Gov. Briggs was appointed one of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas, which office he continued to fill till the reorganization of the Courts of the State in 1856. In 1861 he was appointed one of a commission to adjust the claims between the United States and New Granada; but his death, which was the result of the accidental discharge of a fowling piece, occurred before he had entered upon his duties in the commission. He had taken a deep interest in the great struggle upon which the nation had just entered, and one of his last public acts was the addressing a regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers, of which his son was the commander. Gov. Briggs had taken through life an active interest in the religious and benevolent enterprises of the age, and at the time of his death was president of the American Baptist Missionary Union, of the American Tract Society at Boston, the American Temperance Union, and the Massachusetts Sabbath School Union, and director in several other benevolent societies.

BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT, an English poetess, born in London in 1809, died at Florence, Italy, July 29, 1861. Her education was conducted mostly at home, her father being a man of fortune and of high culture, and was of a more masculine character than is often bestowed on females. She early acquired a thorough familiarity with the writings of the Greek dramatists, which has had its influence in her subsequent writings. She also acquired

a critical knowledge of the Hebrew and other Oriental languages. She commenced writing, at an early age, her "Essay on Mind, and other Poems," appearing when she was but 17 years of age. In 1833 she published "Prometheus Bound, and Miscellaneous Poems," a volume displaying much genius, though the version of the Greek tragedy so little satisfied her that she subsequently replaced it by another and better one. In 1838 appeared "The Seraphim and other Poems," a work which gave her a high reputation, though at a period when literary reputation was of but little value to her. About the time of its publication, the rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs had induced a critical state of her health, which was still further impaired by the drowning of her eldest brother, who had accompanied her to Torquay for the benefit of the sea air. For several years she was confined to a darkened room, and for a long time her life seemed to hang quivering in the balance. On her partial recovery from this condition, she renewed her literary efforts, and the first fruits of it were seen in a series of erudite and brilliant essays on the Greek Christian poets, published in the Athenæum; this was followed by the "Drama of Exile," "Lady Geraldine's Courtship," "The Cry of the Human," "The Lost Bower," &c. In 1844 a collection of her poems was published, and almost immediately reproduced in this country. In 1846 she married Robert Browning, a poet of high reputation, and immediately after accompanied him to Pisa, subsequently removing to Florence, which was their permanent residence during the remainder of her life. Her works were republished with large additions in 1850, and in 1851 she gave to the public a new volume with the title of "Casa Guidi Windows," which contains some of her best poems. In 1856 appeared her "Aurora Leigh," and in 1859 a volume of shorter poems; a posthumous collection of her later poems not previously gathered has been published the present year, (1862.) Her health had gradually declined, and her death was rather an exhaustion of the vital forces than a struggle. For a more full account of her works and a critical estimate of her writings, see NEW AMERICAN CYCLOPEDIA, Vol. 3, pp. 765, 766.

BUCKHANNON, a town of Western Virginia, the capital of Upshur Co., situated on the east fork of Monongahela River. On the 1st July, Brig.-Gen. Morris, commanding the Third and Fourth Ohio regiments, attacked a division of Confederate troops, under command of Gen. Henry A. Wise, at this place, and routed them completely; killing, as was reported, 23, and taking 200 prisoners. Federal loss not stated, but small.

BULL RUN, in the northeastern part of the State of Virginia, forms the boundary between Fairfax and Prince William counties, until it enters the Occoquan River, about fourteen miles from its mouth. The Occoquan empties into the Potomac, about twenty-five miles below Wash

ington. It is formed by the junction of Broad Run and Cedar Run, about one mile below Brentsville in Prince William County, and some miles above the mouth of Bull Run. The distance by railroad from Alexandria to Manassas Junction is twenty-seven miles. The route pursued by the Federal army from Arlington Heights to Centreville is nearly parallel with the railroad, and a few miles north of it. The distance from Manassas Junction to Bull Run where a battle took place, is about seven or eight miles; and the distance from the latter place to Centreville about three miles. The distance from Centreville to Fairfax Court House is ten miles. The distance from Fairfax Court House to the Potomac is about twelve miles.

The Confederate Government having adopted the defensive policy as that upon which they should act, their first object was to prevent an advance of any Federal force into Virginia. Early in the month of May, troops were assembled in Virginia and pushed forward towards the northeastern boundary of the State, to a position known as Manassas Junction. The name is given to this hilly region, as it is here that a railroad from Alexandria, another from Staunton up the valley and through Manassas Gap, and another from Gordonsville unite. At Gordonsville the railroad from Richmond and the line from East Tennessee unite. As a point for concentration none more eligible exists in northeastern Virginia. The advantages for fortification are naturally such that the place can be rendered impregnable. Here the centre of the northern Confederate army was posted, with the left wing pushed forward to Winchester, and the right extended to the Potomac, and sustained by heavy batteries which served to blockade the river.

The Federal force, the advance of which was assembled at Washington for the defence of that city against any attack by the Confederate troops, was posted on the Virginia side of the Potomac, on Arlington Heights, which were strongly fortified. Their right was pushed some distance up the Potomac, and chiefly on the Maryland side, while their left occupied Alexandria. The armies of both sides consisted of raw militia hastily brought together, and of volunteers who for the first time had put on the uniform, and taken up the weapons of the soldier. On both sides the forces were constantly accumulating. On the morning of June 27th, the consolidated report of Gen. Mansfield commanding the Department of Washington, gives the number of troops in that city and vicinity. The privates, including regulars and volunteers present for duty, numbered 22,846 men. The grand aggregate of the force, including officers &c., present and absent, was 34,160 men. The force of Gen. Patterson commanding in Maryland above Washington, and also on the Virginia side of the Potomac, on the 28th of June, was returned, embracing officers and men enlisted and present for duty, 15,923. Of these about 550 were reported as sick.