The Pensacola correspondent of the N. Y. Tribune writes from the U. S. steamer Brooklyn, off Pensacola bar, April 2d :
I can assure you our condition has been deplorable enough for some time past. At one period, we were almost reduced to the point of starvation, so successfully had the edict of Gen. Braxton Bragg, forbidding all communication with United States vessels, been carried out. As we were thus necessitated to procure the necessities of life elsewhere, we “up anchor” on the 22d ult , and steamed direct to Key West, at which place we arrived in excellent time, Here, everything was perfectly quiet, but as we run into the harbor, the hotheaded rebels that observed us busied themselves in hoisting secession flags, and as they were tauntingly flung to the breeze, accompanied the act with shouts of derision.
A letter to the New Orleans Delta, dated Warrington Navy-Yard, Florida, the 2d inst., says : "The works first commenced are in a highly finished state, and new batteries have…
The Union, of yesterday, has dispatches from St. Louis to the 25th of March, received by Pony express. No decision had been arrived at, so far as was known to…
The recent “masterly inactivity” of our new administration has ceased to be a mystery. It is at length understood. Professions and appearances of peace, conciliation and forbearance in regard to the seceded States were all well enough in view of Mr. Secretary Chase’s call upon Wall street for eight millions in the way of a loan, and in view of certain elections in Connecticut and Rhode Island. But those elections being over, and Mr. Chase’s loan having been sufficiently successful to delude him with the idea that, come what may, he has only to ask in order to receive any amount of money from our Wall street financiers, we find that all these late professions and pretences of peace and conciliation were only disguises, which, having served their objects, are now thrown aside. The people of Connecticut and Rhode Island have been deceived, and the sharp and knowing money changers of Wall street have been egregiously humbugged. War, and not peace, it is now manifest, has been all along the fixed policy and purpose of Mr. Lincoln’s administration.
Our new President has some reputation as a joker, and the practical jokes, in the game of hide and peek, which he has been playing with Fort Sumter for several weeks, have certainly been very amusing. Astonished one day by authentic advices from Washington of a Cabinet decision for the immediate evacuation of said fort, and taken somewhat aback the next day by reliable information that there has been no Cabinet decision on the subject, we have been positively assured on the third day that if Major Anderson cannot be relieved he will be left himself to choose between starvation, evacuation or capitulation. Fourthly, all the Washington correspondents concur in the report that though Fort Sumter may be abandoned, Fort Pickens will be held by our government “at all hazards and to the last extremity.”
WASHINGTON, March 17. —The decision in regard to the withdrawal of Major Anderson’s command now rests exclusively with the President. He has had the fullest oral and written opinions of General Scott and the most skillful officers of the army, and the spoken and written counsel of every member of his Cabinet. No determination was reached yesterday. Mr. Lincoln is fully sensible of the important responsibility which rests upon him, and will decide finally with the full knowledge that he is to bear it before the country.
It is known that after a deliberate investigation of all the facts, the Cabinet, with one exception, approve the military judgment of Gen. Scott, and yield to it as a necessity which cannot be avoided. This almost unanimous concurrence on the part of men who have been supposed to regard this subject from opposite standpoints, and to hold different views of policy for its treatment, is sufficient to show that there must be the most sufficient reasons for this conclusion.
February 20, 1861.— Dear Brother—As a special messenger will leave here for Washington to-morrow I will ask him to carry some private letters, with his public ones, and let you know some little about Fort Pickens and the inhabitants thereof. I only wish it were not so much of a one-sided arrangement, as we need letters down here more than you fortunate people up North can. The papers come through sometimes, but letters never. It quite surprises me to see my name figuring so extensively in the newspapers. I have simply done my duty; but I suppose the doing it, under such a pressure of opposition, makes it appear creditable. The troops are leaving the opposite shore, disgusted at playing soldier, I suppose. They say there are only about three hundred remaining, and these are regulars, haying enlisted for one year. My messenger to the yard, this morning, said they were afraid we would attack them now. We could do so, and get possession again of everything in an hour, if we were only permitted to take such a course.
I have now mounted nearly all the guns—that is, all that are really necessary to enable this work to be defended by a force of five hundred men. We have worked like horses to accomplish this, but great tbings can be done by small means when one knows how. This small command has done more than Chase or Lomax could have done with their two thousand men, and they know it. Having seen our guns go up so rapidly, they swear we have bad reinforcements. In fact, the papers say, nothing else could be expected—that we nave smuggled in men from the vessels. It is true we could have done so, and they be none the wiser; but not a man has been added to this command from them. In fact, so particular are we, that not even an officer has come ashore, with the exception of Captain Vogdes, and he only once, when the vessels first came.
Popular interest in warlike movements now centres nearer at home than when Charleston was the only point from which radiated the war excitements of the day. The immediate interest of at least three States—Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, is now becoming alive to the importance of occupying the forts within the borders of the latter Commonwealth. We see repeated at Pensacola, the manoeuvre of Anderson at Moultrie. There are three forts at Pensacola, a Navy Yard and a redoubt. Commandant Armstrong has abandoned the Navy Yard and Fort Barancas, removing munitions and spiking guns, and transferring his forces, amounting in the aggregate to between two and three hundred men, from the main land to Santa Rosa Island, has prepared to make good his position within the-immensely strong fortifications of Fort Pickens. Whether he has abandoned Fort McCree, also, we are not advised, but we doubt if he has. This fortress is a powerful and castle-like masonry erection, built on a low sand-spit of the main land, and appearing to rise out of the water. It is further seaward than Fort Pickens, of which it is the vis-a vis across the channel, and a vessel entering must needs run the gauntlet of its guns before approaching the latter, which, however, of itself, effectually closes the harbor against the admission of an enemy of even very heavy force.
