46 



ATKINSON. 



AUSTRIA. 



place on the 5th of August, between a body of 

 Missouri Home Guards from 300 to 400 iu num- 

 ber under command of Col. Moore, and a Con- 

 federate force of 1,200 to 1,500, commanded 

 by Martin Green, brother of ex-Senator Green 

 of Missouri. Green had been marauding 

 through Clarke and Knox counties, and had 

 finally expressed his determination to annihi- 

 late the little body of Home Guards at Athens. 

 Col. Moore had at first about 400 men posted 

 on the hill, on the slope of winch the village 

 stands, and with wings extending to the river, 

 and on the opposite side of the river were about 

 70 Iowa soldiers from Keokuk ; but he had 

 no artillery. Col. Green had one eight-pounder, 

 and two imitation cannon, and came on very 

 confidently. About 100 of Moore's men were 

 panic-struck, including a cavalry company, and 

 fled ; but the remainder stood their ground, and 

 after a fight of an hour and a half, charged up- 

 on the Confederates, who broke and ran. They 

 were mostly mounted, but they leaped from 

 their horses and fled on foot. The result of 

 the battle was a loss of 12 Unionists killed 

 and 8 wounded; while the Confederate loss 

 was 23 killed and 44 wounded. The Federal 

 troops also captured forty horses, 5 wagon loads 

 of supplies, the mock cannon, and a quantity 

 of arms. They pursued the Confederates for 

 several miles. 



ATKINSON", THOMAS WITLAM, an English 

 traveller and artist, born in Yorkshire, March 6, 

 1799, died at Lower "Wahner in Kent, Aug. 

 13, 1861. He was early left an orphan, and 

 compelled to obtain his education where and 

 how he could. He was apprentice for some 

 years to an architect, and acquired some dis- 

 tinction by his architectural designs ; but his 

 earnest love of high art led him to devote his 

 whole time to landscape painting, in which he 

 soon attained a high reputation. Humboldt's 

 description of the sublime and majestic scenery 

 of Higher Asia, impelled him to seek among the 

 mountains and unexplored regions of Siberia 

 and Chinese Tartary, landscapes hitherto un- 

 known to the artist, and in 1846, having secur- 

 ed the approval and protection of the Czar, 

 he set forth alone on a tour of exploration in 

 regions unknown to civilized men. Seven 

 years were spent in his wanderings in those dis- 

 tant and inclement lands ; years of. toil, priva- 

 tion, and danger, but replete with interest in 

 the incidents which came under his observa- 

 tion, and the- insight they afforded of human 

 life and character under circumstances entirely 

 diverse from those of civilized lands. After 

 many perilous adventures, and hair-breadth 

 escapes, he returned in 1854, with impaired 

 health, but with a rich collection of sketches of 

 the country he had visited, which he gave to 

 the public four years later, in connection with 

 his " Oriental and Western Siberia : a narrative 

 of seven years' exploration," London, 1858; a 

 work of highly fascinating character, though 

 marked by a most provoking absence of dates. 



In 1860, he published " Travels in the regions 



of the Upper and Lower Amoor," a work of less 

 merit, though containing many fine descriptive 

 passages. From the time of his return from the 

 East, his health had been steadily though grad- 

 ually declining. His exposures and exertions 

 had impaired his naturally vigorous constitution, 

 and he succumbed to disease at the age of 62. 



AUSTRIA, an empire of Central Europe, 

 bounded north by Poland, Silesia, and the 

 Kingdom of Saxony ; west by Bavaria, Swit- 

 zerland, and Sardinia ; south by the Pontifical 

 States, the Adriatic, and Turkey ; east by Mol- 

 davia and Russia. It is 670 miles long by 420 

 broad, without reckoning its extreme prolonga- 

 tions ; reckoning them, it is 800 miles in extreme 

 length from east to west, and 690 in extreme 

 breadth; area, 249,943 square miles; pop. in 

 1860, 36,401,864. It is divided into nine Ger- 

 man, one Polish, one Italian, and six Hungarian 

 provinces. The German provinces are Bohe- 

 mia, Austrian Silesia, Moravia, Lower and 

 Upper Austria, Salzburg, Styria, Illyria, and 

 Tyrol and Vorarlberg. The Polish province is 

 Galicia and Bukowiiia. The Italian, Venetia. 

 The six Hungarian are Hungary proper, (di- 

 vided into the five districts of Pesth, Odenburg, 

 Presburg, Kaschau, and Grosswardein,) Tran- 

 sylvania, the Banat and Servia, Croatia and 

 Sclavonia, Dalmatia, and the Military Frontier. 



At the beginning of the year 1861, war 

 seemed imminent. Victor Emanuel had not 

 only succeeded in conquering and attracting to 

 his sway all of Italy except Venetia and the 

 small remnant of the States of the Church 

 which still owned allegiance to the Pope, but 

 he had assumed the title of " King of Italy," 

 which was especially offensive to the Emperor 

 of Austria, who had till lately exerted so large 

 an influence in the affairs of Italy. Garibaldi, 

 too, was believed to be only waiting for the 

 opening of the spring to attack Austria in its 

 weakest point, by assisting Hungary. Mean- 

 time, the Magyar race, who had for thirteen 

 years been restive under the Austrian yoke, 

 gave unmistakable signs of their determination 

 to throw it off, and by their passive but deter- 

 mined resistance to all the measures of the Aus- 

 trian Government seemed fast approaching a 

 crisis in their history ; and Venetia, though 

 powerless to act alone, was ready at the slight- 

 est sign of aid from other quarters to revolt. 



The Austrian emperor, with such probabili- 

 ties of war before him, and the imperial finances 

 in a condition which would make a long and 

 expensive war inevitable ruin, was induced to 

 take measures which have had the effect of 

 postponing, if not of averting the conflict. On 

 the 20th of October, 1860, he had issued a de- 

 cree which conferred jointly upon the provin- 

 cial diets and the Council of the Empire the 

 power of making, modifying, and repealing 

 laws ; while it reserved to the Council alone 

 the decision of all questions concerning the ad- 

 ministration of the laws, finances, banks, posts, 

 telegraphs, railways, military affairs, taxes, the 

 management of the- national debt, and the sale 



