Showing posts with label Confederate Atrocities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Confederate Atrocities. Show all posts

Saturday, April 28, 2018

Diary of William Howard Russell: July 3, 1861

Up early, breakfasted at five, A. M., and left my hospitable host's roof, on my way to Washington. The ferryboat, which is a long way off, starts for the train at seven o'clock; and so bad are the roads, I nearly missed it. On hurrying to secure my place in the train, I said to one of the railway officers: “If you see a colored man in a cloth cap and dark coat with metal buttons, will you be good enough, sir, to tell him I'm in this carriage.” “Why so, sir?” “He is my servant.” Servant,” he repeated; “your servant! I presume you're a Britisher; and if he's your servant, I think you may as well let him find you.” And so he walked away, delighted with his cleverness, his civility, and his rebuke of an aristocrat.

Nearly four months since I went by this road to Washington. The change which has since occurred is beyond belief. Men were then speaking of place under Government, of compromises between North and South, and of peace; now they only talk of war and battle. Ever since I came out of the South, and could see the newspapers, I have been struck by the easiness of the American people, by their excessive credulity. Whether they wish it or not, they are certainly deceived. Not a day has passed without the announcement that the Federal troops were moving, and that “a great battle was expected” by somebody unknown, at some place or other.

I could not help observing the arrogant tone with which writers of stupendous ignorance on military matters write of the operations which they think the Generals should undertake. They demand that an army, which has neither adequate transport, artillery, nor cavalry, shall be pushed forward to Richmond to crush out Secession, and at the same time their columns teem with accounts from the army, which prove that it is not only ill-disciplined, but that it is ill-provided. A general outcry has been raised against the war department and the contractors, and it is openly stated that Mr. Cameron, the Secretary, has not clean hands. One journal denounces the “swindling and plunder” which prevail under his eyes. A minister who is disposed to be corrupt can be so with facility under the system of the United States, because he has absolute control over the contracts, which are rising to an enormous magnitude, as the war preparations assume more formidable dimensions. The greater part of the military stores of the States are in the South — arms, ordnance, clothing, ammunition, ships, machinery, and all kinds of material must be prepared in a hurry.

The condition in which the States present themselves, particularly at sea, is a curious commentary on the offensive and warlike tone of their statesmen in their dealings with the first maritime power of the world. They cannot blockade a single port effectually. The Confederate steamer Sumter has escaped to sea from New Orleans, and ships run in and out of Charleston almost as they please. Coming so recently from the South, I can see the great difference which exists between the two races, as they may be called, exemplified in “the men I have seen, and those who are in the train going towards Washington. These volunteers have none of the swash-buckler bravado, gallant-swaggering air of the Southern men. They are staid, quiet men, and the Pennsylvanians, who are on their way to join their regiment in Baltimore, are very inferior in size and strength to the Tennesseans and Carolinians.

The train is full of men in uniform. When I last went over the line, I do not believe there was a sign of soldiering, beyond perhaps the “conductor,” who is always described in the papers as being “gentlemanly,” wore his badge. And, a propos of badges, I see that civilians have taken to wearing shields of metal on their coats, enamelled with the stars and stripes, and that men who are not in the army try to make it seem they are soldiers by affecting military caps and cloaks.

The country between Washington and Philadelphia is destitute of natural beauties, but it affords abundant evidence that it is inhabited by a prosperous, comfortable, middle-class community. From every village church and from many houses, the Union flag was displayed: Four months ago not one was to be sea. When we were crossing in the steam ferryboat at Philadelphia I saw some volunteers looking up and smiling at a hatchet which was over the cabin door, and it was not till I saw it had the words “States’ Rights Fire Axe” painted along the handle I could account for the attraction. It would fare, ill with any vessel in Southern waters which displayed an axe to the citizens inscribed with “Down with States' Rights” on it. There is certainly less vehemence and bitterness among the Northerners; but it might be erroneous to suppose there was less determination.

Below Philadelphia, from Havre-de-Grace all the way to Baltimore, and thence on to Washington, the stations on the rail were guarded by soldiers, as though an enemy were expected to destroy the bridges and to tear up the rails. Wooden bridges and causeways, carried over piles and embankments, are necessary, in consequence of the nature of the country; and at each of these a small camp was formed for the soldiers who have to guard the approaches. Sentinels are posted, pickets thrown out, and in the open field by the wayside troops are to be seen moving, as though a battle was close at hand. In one word, we are in the State of Maryland. By these means alone are communications maintained between the North and the capital. As we approach Baltimore the number of sentinels and camps increase, and earthworks have been thrown up on the high grounds commanding the city. The display of Federal flags from the public buildings and some shipping in the river was so limited as to contrast strongly with those symbols of Union sentiments in the Northern cities.

Since I last passed through this city the streets have been a scene of bloodshed. The conductor of the car on which we travelled from one terminus to the other, along the street railway, pointed out the marks of the bullets on the walls and in the window frames. “That's the way to deal with the Plug Uglies,” exclaimed he; a name given popularly to the lower classes called Rowdies in New York. “Yes,” said a fellow-passenger quietly to me, “these are the sentiments which are now uttered in the country which we call the land of freedom, and men like that desire nothing better than brute force. There is no city in Europe — Venice, Warsaw, or Rome — subject to such tyranny as Baltimore at this moment. In this Pratt Street there have been murders as foul as ever soldiery committed in the streets of Paris.” Here was evidently the judicial blindness of a States' Rights fanatic, who considers the despatch of Federal soldiers through the State of Maryland without the permission of the authorities an outrage so flagrant as to justify the people in shooting them down, whilst the soldiers become murderers if they resist. At the corners of the streets strong guards of soldiers were posted, and patrols moved up and down the thoroughfares. The inhabitants looked sullen  and sad. A small war is waged by the police recently appointed by the Federal authorities against the women, who exhibit much ingenuity in expressing their animosity to the stars and stripes — dressing the children, and even dolls, in the Confederate colors, and wearing the same in ribbons and bows. The negro population alone seemed just the same as before. . The Secession newspapers of Baltimore have been suppressed, but the editors contrive nevertheless to show their sympathies in the selection of their extracts. In to-day's paper there is an account of a skirmish in the West, given by one of the Confederates who took part in it, in which it is stated that the officer commanding the party “scalped” twenty-three Federals. For the first time since I left the South I see those advertisements headed by the figure of a negro running with a bundle, and containing descriptions of the fugitive, and the reward offered for imprisoning him or her, so that the owner may receive his property. Among the insignia enumerated are scars on the back and over the loins. The whip is not only used by the masters and drivers, but by the police; and in every report of petty police cases sentences of so many lashes, and severe floggings of women of color are recorded.

It is about forty miles from Baltimore to Washington, and at every quarter of a mile for the whole distance a picket of soldiers guarded the rails. Camps appeared on both sides, larger and more closely packed together; and the rays of the setting sun fell on countless lines of tents as we approached the unfinished dome of the Capitol. On the Virginian side of the river, columns of smoke rising from the forest marked the site of Federal encampments across the stream. The fields around Washington resounded with the words of command and tramp of men, and flashed with wheeling arms. Parks of artillery studded the waste ground, and long trains of white-covered wagons filled up the open spaces in the suburbs of Washington.

To me all this was a wonderful sight. As I drove up Pennsylvania Avenue I could scarce credit that the busy thoroughfare — all red, white, and blue with flags, filled with dust from galloping chargers and commissariat carts; the side-walks thronged with people, of whom a large proportion carried sword or bayonet; shops full of life and activity — was the same as that through which I had driven the first morning of my arrival. Washington now, indeed, is the capital of the United States; but it is no longer the scene of beneficent legislation and of peaceful government. It is the representative of armed force engaged in war — menaced whilst in the very act of raising its arm by the enemy it seeks to strike.

To avoid the tumult of Willard's, I requested a friend to hire apartments, and drove to a house in Pennsylvania Avenue, close to the War Department, where he had succeeded in engaging a sitting-room about twelve feet square, and a bedroom to correspond, in a very small mansion, next door to a spirit merchant's. At the Legation I saw Lord Lyons, and gave him a brief account of what I had seen in the South. I was sorry to observe he looked rather careworn and pale.

The relations of the United States Government with Great Britain have probably been considerably affected by Mr. Seward's failure in his prophecies. As the Southern Confederacy develops its power, the Foreign Secretary assumes higher ground, and becomes more exacting, and defiant. In these hot summer days, Lord Lyons and the members of the Legation dine early, and enjoy the cool of the evening in the garden; so after a while I took my leave, and proceeded to Gautier's. On my way I met Mr. Sumner, who asked me for Southern news very anxiously, and in the course of conversation with him I was confirmed in my impressions that the feeling between the two countries was not as friendly as could be desired. Lord Lyons had better means of knowing what is going on in the South, by communications from the British Consuls; but even he seemed unaware of facts which had occurred whilst I was there, and Mr. Sumner appeared to be as ignorant of the whole condition of things below Mason and Dixon's line as he was of the politics of Timbuctoo.

The importance of maintaining a friendly feeling with England appeared to me very strongly impressed on the Senator's mind. Mr. Seward has been fretful, irritable, and acrimonious; and it is not too much to suppose Mr. Sumner has been useful in allaying irritation. A certain despatch was written last June, which amounted to little less than a declaration of war against Great Britain. Most fortunately the President was induced to exercise his power. The despatch was modified, though not without opposition, and was forwarded to the English Minister with its teeth drawn. Lord Lyons, who is one of the suavest and quietest of diplomatists, has found it difficult, I fear, to maintain personal relations with Mr. Seward at times. Two despatches have been prepared for Lord John Russell, which could have had no result but to lead to a breach of the peace, had not some friendly interpositor succeeded in averting the wrath of the Foreign Minister.

Mr. Sumner is more sanguine of immediate success than I am, from the military operations which are to commence when General Scott considers the army fit to take the field. A Gautier's I met a number of officers, who expressed a great diversity of views in reference to those operations. General McDowell is popular with them, but they admit the great deficiencies of the subaltern and company officers. General Scott is too infirm to take the field, and the burdens of administration press the veteran to the earth.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, Vol. 1, p. 373-8

Monday, February 27, 2017

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: Monday July 21, 1862

We are target firing now. The Enfields are a little better sighted than the muskets; the muskets have most power and the longest range. Company C does rather the best shooting, Companies E and A coming next.

A zouave at the Flat Top camp found tied to a tree with five bullet holes through him! Naked too! An enemy's cavalry patrol seen two miles outside of our pickets. Secesh, ten or twelve in number.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 307

Monday, August 22, 2016

Diary of Luman Harris Tenney: Sunday, August 17, 1862

Breakfasted and under way at 5 A. M. Passed through Rose Hill, a very pretty little town. Hugh Watson and I went ahead and got apples, watermelons, plums and wild grapes. Had a good time. Passed through “Index,” another little town. Major rode with us in the wagon all day, good time. Reached “Lone Jack,” where the enemy were, at sundown an hour before. A man came up and reported 1500 enemy in our rear. Major Purington with rear guard, watched them and kept near them. Fired a good deal and tried to detain them. Proved to be the enemy retreating the way we had come. Major sent word for reinforcements. Some went but did not follow fast enough till dark set in. Commenced to rain. Command moved. Baggage soon could not go, it was so dark. So the enemy escaped us, so slickly through the gap. General Salomon had advised and entreated Blunt to keep flankers and scouts out through the woods near “Lone Jack.” They had intelligence from Warren that they were surely there, and we were passing within a mile. The ground was favorable for their retreat from the town — unseen. They kept a large picket about town and thus fooled our men. Warren could not believe that they had gone. So they left us, as a mouse from a trap. All the officers were enraged and disgusted with Blunt's mistake, still hoped to overtake them. I went out a mile and got an old mare to ride. The history of the fight of the day previous was as follows: The day before, Quantrell, with 1200 men burned Independence and then skedaddled; Capt. Burns from Kansas City, with two companies of cavalry, four of infantry and two pieces of artillery, followed; at night overtook them and shelled their camp. They ran. The next morning Quantrell met Coffee and turned back. Lay in the brush and waited for them, coming through a lane. When the Feds came along they rose up and poured volley after volley into them. They hurried back to the village and there fought desperately. Finally overpowered, spiked one of the guns, destroyed the ammunition and ran. Warren, who had followed Coffee from Butler, watched them here that and the next day, till we came up confident that they would stand a fight. About 60 killed and many wounded on each side. Rebels burned ten of our wounded men in a house used as a hospital.

SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman Harris Tenney, p. 26

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

From Washington

WASHINGTON, April 30.

The joint committee on the conduct of the war made a lengthy report regarding the treatment by the rebels at Manassas of the remains of the officers and soldiers killed there.  They say the facts disclosed are of a painful, repulsive and shocking character; that the rebels have crowned this rebellion by perpetration of deeds scarcely known even to savage warfare.  Investigations have established this beyond controversy.  The witnesses called before us are men of undoubted veracity and character.  Some of them occupy high positions in the army and some of them high positions in civil life: differing in political sentiments, their evidence proves a remarkable concurrence of opinion and judgment.  Our own people and foreign nations must, with one accord, (however they have hesitated heretofore,) consign to lasting odium the authors of crimes which, in all their details, exceed the worst excesses of the Sepoys in India.  The outrages on the dead will revive the recollections of the cruelties to which savage tribes subject their prisoners.  They were buried, in many cases, naked, with their faces downward; they were left to decay in the open air, their bones being carried off as trophies – sometimes, as the testimony proves, to be used as personal adornments; and one witness deliberately avows that the head of one of our most gallant officers was cut off by a secessionist to be used as a drinking cup on the occasion of his marriage.

Wm. Allen Bryant, of Va., nephew of Gov. James Barber, has been appointed chief of the bureau of inspection of the post office department.

The vote in the Senate refusing, by four majority, to refer the subject of the confiscation of rebel property to a select committee, was regarded as a test vote between the friends and opponents of the measure, and a triumph of the former.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Friday Morning, May 2, 1862, p. 1

Sunday, February 17, 2013

A correspondent of the Utica Observer . . .

. . . writing from Missouri, speaks of the discovery of divers[e] interesting relics found in the rebel camp.  Among others two human ribs, bearing the following inscription: – “The ribs of a New York Zouave, July 21, 1861,” soup dishes made of human skulls, &c.  In a railway car on a road running out of Macon, Georgia, hangs, or did hang a human skull, purporting to be that of a Yankee soldier killed at Bull Run.  It is useless to talk about southern society declining towards barbarism – it is already there.

– Published in the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 12, 1862, p. 4

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Southern Chivalry Illustrated

A New York correspondent writes:

“Among the mementoes brought here from the battle field of Manassas, is the skull of a New York Fire Zouave, which was picked up in an old hut near Bull Run.  A blow back [of] the right ear had shattered the skull nearly in two.  It has evidently been the property of some rebel, who has taken great pains to keep it in good condition, it having been polished and whitened.  On it is the following inscription, written in ink.”

“Skull of a New York Fire Zouave, killed July 21st, 1861, at the battle of Manassas Plains.”
Sic Semper Tyranus.


A correspondent of the Pittsburg Gazette at Washington, writes:


“A friend who spent nearly all of the last week at Manassas, and in the vicinity, came back yesterday loaded with relics of the ill-fated field of Bull Run, and some of the debris of headquarters.  He has a rare collection of letters in all styles of orthography, except the correct.  One letter was from a lady to her friend, thanking him for the gift he had sent her, and which had arrived safely at hand – in South Carolina.  Now, gentle reader, you who may perchance permit your eye to read upon this line, what think you was this gift?  Imagine this fair daughter of ‘Caroleena’ [illegible]ing to her fairy bower, ’neath the dark magnolia, in the shade of her orange grove, fanned by her dusky slave, while she snatches from the letter of her champion, ‘gone to the wars,’ his gift of love!  Precious token of his affection!  What was it?  A part of a dead man’s finger! Or in the language of the letter, ‘a bone from a Yankee’s finger!’”

What facts the rebels are putting into the head of Sumner to illustrate his theory of the barbarism of slavery.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 5, 1862, p. 2

Sunday, September 2, 2012

The Norfolk Day Book openly boasted . . .

. . . that the rebels made candles from the bodies of the dead.  The statement was too monstrous for belief; but since the evacuation of Manassas, there is said to be undoubtable evidence that the Mississippi soldiers did disinter the bodies of our troops buried at Bull Run, boil off the flesh, and make rings and ornaments of the bones.  Members of the Sanitary Committee assert this positively and taken in connection with the assertion made by the Day Book last fall, the scalping of our dead by the savage allies of the rebels in Arkansas, less savage and brutal than the Mississippi troops and the advertisement in a Southern Newspaper for blood-hounds to track Federal soldiers, it becomes no longer incredible.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 22, 1862, p. 3

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Barbarities of the Rebels


NEW YORK, March 19. – The Tribune’s dispatch states further confirmation of previous statements touching the barbarities practiced by the rebels upon the bodies of Union soldiers buried on the battle field of Bull Run have been received.  The Lieutenant Colonel of the 3d New Jersey regiment, the first regiment of infantry to enter Manassas, has in his possession a skull which he found hanging over a table in a rebel hut inscribed with the words “Sic Sumper Tyrannus,” and the Virginia coat of arms.  He satisfied himself also that they used skulls for ladles, and made pipes of the bones of our slaughtered men.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 22, 1862, p. 3

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Barbarity Of The Rebels


When the history of this war is written there will be revelations of most appalling cruelties perpetrated upon the Union men of the South.  A letter from Knox county, Ky., gives the following account of the murder of Col. Pickens, late State senator from that county:

He was arrested and taken to Tuscaloosa, Al., where has was confined in prison for some time, on a charge of treason against the Confederacy.  He was taken out and placed in the custody of a gang of land pirates, who, it was pretended, were to convey him to some other point to have his case further investigated.  They took the old patriot and started, but did not proceed far, until they reported him to have taken suddenly sick and died.  But the facts turn out that he was taken off some distance, and the alternative presented to him to henceforth espouse the cause of rebellion, and give it the benefit of his influence and great popularity, or expiate is refusal (crime) by his life!  He told them plainly he did not recognize their government, and told them he could not and would not give his name and influence to any such cause.  He told them that if his life must be taken for that, his offence, it must go; and he hoped in God that from his blood and his grave would grow up a holy and a patriotic ardor, and that would infuse a spirit into his countrymen which would avenge his death and redeem his bleeding country.  Upon this, they deliberately hung Col. Pickens, after which they very piously sent his remains to his family.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 15, 1862, p. 1

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Rebel Atrocities In East Tennessee

The horrors of rebel supremacy in East Tennessee have not yet been told.  A member of the Forty-ninth Indiana regiment now at Cumberland Ford, says that three hundred refugee East Tennesseeans have enlisted within a week from whom he gathers the following almost incredible stores of the barbarities inflicted on Union men by their rebel tyrants:

One man sixty-five years old, attacked by a large force, refused to surrender, and after being mortally wounded, having first slain four of his assailants, was propped up on the road side and sixty balls fired into his body. – Another was hanged without trial, and his son compelled to sit beneath the gallows and witness the agonies of his dying father.  Two other unobtrusive, quiet citizens, were called at midnight from their beds, and in the presence of their wives and children brutally shot down, and not content with this villainy, their homes were stripped of everything.  Even the wearing apparel was taken from their wives and little ones, and they turned naked into the street.  Many equally brutal instances are related by honest, candid men, whose testimony none would doubt.  Such are the sufferings of a people whose only crime is a refusal to become traitors.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 8, 1862, p. 1

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

A Rebel Atrocity – Eight Union Men Starved To Death

A Fort Donelson correspondent states that the bodies of several Union men, on which could be found no wounds were discovered in Dover jail.  It was supposed that they were either starved or poisoned, but all the rebels said they knew nothing about them.  The Terre Haute Express, without apparently having heard the above particulars, states that one of the prisoners who passed through that place on Saturday, said that last summer, eight Union men had been taken and [confined at Dover, Tennessee, and literally starved to death!  This atrocity deserves a thorough investigation.]

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 1, 1862, p. 3.  This article, located at the bottom of the page was cut off during microfilming and/or digitization.  The text in the brackets come “The Rebellion Record: A Diary of American Events,” edited by Frank Moore, volume 4, p. 46

Friday, February 17, 2012

Rebel Brutality

HARRISBURG, May 26 – The following dispatch has been received by the Governor from a reliable source.  It is proper the people should know the facts,


CHAMBERSBURG, PA May 26

To Governor Curtin

We have examined a dozen stragglers from the Maryland First, of Gen. Banks column, to-day.  The testimony is concurrent as to the brutal treatment of our sick and wounded prisoners.  A number of Pennsylvanians who were since at Winchester are hid in the wheat fields on Gen. Banks’ route of retreat.  Many were mercilessly butchered.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 31, 1862, p. 4

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Savage Barbarities

NEW YORK, May 28 – Sick and wounded men who escaped from Strasburgh say that the rebels deliberately attacked our sick firing into the ambulances and upon the fainting men by the wayside, killing in cold blood men incapable of making resistance.  The traitors displayed a white flag with black bars.

A letter from an Union prisoner at Richmond dated the last day of May describes with graphic force the terrible barbarities inflicted on our troops now in rebel hands.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 31, 1862, p. 3

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

By Telegraph

(Reported expressly for the Gazette.)

Opinion of the Attorney General in regard to Pensions.

Rumored Promotion of General Rosencrans [sic].

Skirmish between the Rebels and Gen. Sickles’ Division.
__________


From Washington

WASHINGTON, April 4.

Attorney Gen. Bates has given his opinion that the acts of January and August, 1813, granting pensions for wounds or disabilities are applicable only to the forces thereby created, and will not cover the cases of those called into service by the acts of the 22d of July last; nor are their widows and entitled to pensions under the act of fourth of July, 1836.

Grave doubts may be suggested whether the existing laws make provision for pensions to widows of those now in service who may die from disease or be killed in battle; and upon the whole question the Attorney General inclines to the opinion that there is no adequate provision of law by which such widows are entitled to pensions.  In addition to the bounty conferred by the act of July last, the militia, under the president’s proclamation of the 15th of April 1861, which was in accordance with the law of 2d August, 1813, are, in cases of wounds and disabilities, entitled to pensions under its provisions.

Previous to adjournment to-day, Senator Trumbull gave notice he should call up the confiscation bill and press it daily until disposed of.

An official war bulletin from the War Department, creates two military departments – first, that portion Virginia and Maryland lying between the mountain department and Blue Ridge, to be called the Department of the Shenandoah, to be commanded by Gen. Banks.

Second, that portion of Virginia east of Blue Ridge and West of the Potomac, and the Fredericksburg & Richmond Railroad, including the District of Columbia and the country between the Patuxent, to be called the Department of the Rappahannock; to be under command of Gen. McDowell.


Special to the Tribune.

Wm. H. Russell, of the London Times, has engaged passage to England in the next Cunard steamer.


Times’ Special.

The committee on the conduct of the war have examined several witnesses bearing upon the charge of atrocities by the rebels upon our wounded soldiers at the battle of Bull Run, and the evidence so far is a disgraceful record against the chivalrous Southerners.

The House committee on printing introduced a resolution to-day providing for the printing of 100,000 extra copies of the final report of the committee on war claims at St. Louis.

It is asserted in official circles that Brig. Gen. Rosencrans [sic] is to be promoted to a Major Generalshiip.

The Times’ correspondent telegraphs to-night from Budd’s ferry as follows:


HOOKER’S DIVISION, April 3.

A corps of picked men belonging to the Excelsior brigade, left Liverpool point under the command of Gen. Sickles, early on Tuesday morning, for Stafford Court House, on a reconnaissance.  The troops landed at the Shipping Point batteries, and marched from thence past Dumfries through Aquia to Stafford.

There was a skirmish between a body of 500 rebel cavalry and the advanced corps of Sickles’ command, six miles this side of Stafford, and firing on both sides was continued until we reached that place.  The rebels in their retreat set fire to the town and all the stores.  Our forces promptly stopped the conflagration.  A number of prisoners, horses, stores, &c., fell into our hands from Brook’s station.  A force of 1,200 rebel infantry, and a battery of six field pieces were moving up to support their cavalry, after remaining three hours in Stafford camp.

Gen. Sickles with a part of his corps arrived back at Shipping Point this morning.  The rest came by Brest’s Ferry, opposite Liverpool.

Our casualties were 2 wounded and a few missing.

The corps marched 48 miles in 17 hours, over the worst mountain roads.

There are a few troops at Fredericksburg.  They are falling back to Richmond.  The citizens state that the Confederate Government intend abandoning Virginia.


WASHINGTON, April 4.

The grand jury of the District of Columbia has found two bills of indictment against Horace Greeley for an attack made on the Marshal of the District in the New York Tribune.

A military hospital has been ordered to be established at New Albany, Ind., and Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis; have been converted into a military hospital.

The Secretary of War has communicated to Congress his opinion that the present organization of the medical bureau is inadequate to the service.  He has authorized Surgeon General of New York, under direction of the Governor, to organize a corps of volunteer surgeons to render medical aid when requested.  A similar organization has been made under the Governor of Pennsylvania, and valuable service has been rendered.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Monday Morning, April 7, 1862, p. 2

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

From Washington

WASHINGTON, April 2.

Special to Tribune.

It is stated that the Senate military committee dissents from the rule that volunteer officers must seek from promotion in their own branch of service only.  They think vacancies in the regular army should be filled by experienced men from the volunteer regiments, in preference to civilians.

Mr. Ames of Chicopee manufactory, has presented flag officer Foote with a sword and Lieut. Worden with a cutlass.


Times’ Dispatch

Prisoners taken in the recent reconnoisance to the Rappahannock, state that the rebel force in that vicinity consists of eight regiments of infantry, two of cavalry and six pieces of artillery.  Gen. E. Wells, of Drainsville notoriety, was in command on the return of our forces to Warrenton junction.

The rebels hover around the outskirts of our army, and frequently succeed in picking up small parties of our men, who contrary to commands, go out on foolhardy foraging expeditions.

Information has just been received from the Times’ correspondent on the lower Potomac, that contrabands from Fredericksburg report that town now occupied by thirty regiments of the enemy, the main part of which have arrived there within the last three days.  They report the steamer St. Nicholas and another boat which formerly plied to different points on the Rappahannock, as being held in readiness to transport rebel troops down the Rappahannock to some point.

Other rebel troops are reported as having gone down the York river to reinforce the enemy’s position at the mouth, where the rebels have batteries.  Small detachments of rebel cavalry still occupy Aquia Creek and as far up as Dumfries.

Another magazine has been found at Shipping Point, containing large quantities of shells.


Herald’s Dispatch.

About one and a half millions of six per cent. certificates were issued to-day, chiefly of the denomination of $100.  The checks and warrants now in amount to about ten millions.

Yesterday the Jacob Bell and Stepping Stone visited Evansport.  A boat’s crew from each vessel was sent to shore.  They visited nearly all the batteries in that vicinity, including one on a high hill about half a mile back of Evansport, where was mounted the gun that Capt. Eastman had attempted unsuccessfully to burst.  It is a 32-pounder.  This battery, aided by field pieces, was intended to cover the retreat of the rebels through the woods in the rear, in the event of their being driven from the lower battery.  It was defended by rifle pits.

Several men went a considerable distance into the country, but there were no signs of rebel troops nor inhabitants.  Both parties of seamen subsequently returned on shore in command of Lieut. Commanding McCrea, of the Jacob Bell, and proceeded inland, where they found five rebel store houses containing hay, cutting machines, platform scales and other useful apparatus and implements.  They set fire to the buildings, which were entirely consumed.

A citizen of Cambridge, Mass., who went to Bull Run to recover the remains of his brother, who belonged to a Boston company, gives a melancholy account of the sacrilege committed upon the graves of our soldiers by the rebels.  About thirty of the Boston company and Chelsea company had been buried near each other, but every skull had been taken away and nearly all the principal bones of the bodies were gone.  Some of the bodies had been dug out and others pressed out of the graves with levers and some the sleeves of the uniforms were slit to obtain the bones of the arms.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, April 3, 1862, p. 1

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

A Rebel Atrocity - Eight Union Men Starved To Death

A Fort Donelson correspondent states that the bodies of several Union men, on which could be found no wounds, were discovered in Dover jail.  It was supposed that they were either starved or poisoned, but all the rebels said they knew nothing about them.  The Terre Haute Express, without apparently having heard the above particulars, states that one of the prisoners who passed through that place on Saturday, said that last summer eight Union men had been taken and confined at Dover Tennessee, and literally starved to death!  This atrocity deserves a thorough investigation.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Tuesday Morning, March 4, 1862, p. 2

Friday, January 14, 2011

Northern Sympathisers With Traitors

Parson Brownlow says:

If I owed the devil a debt and it was to be discharged by the rendering up to him of a dozen of the meanest, most revolting and god forsaken wretches that ever could be culled from the ranks of depraved human society, and I wanted to pay that debt and get a premium on the payment, I would make a tender to his Satanic Majesty of twelve Northern men who sympathized with this infernal rebellion. – {Great cheering.}  If I am severe and bitter in my remarks. {Cries of “no, no; not a bit of it.”}  If I am, gentlemen, you must consider that we in the South make a personal matter of this thing {laughter.}  We have no respect or confidence in any Northern man who sympathises [sic] with this infernal rebellion – {Cries of good, good,} – nor should any be tolerated in walking Broadway at any time.  Such men ought to be ridden upon a rail and ridden out of the North.  {Good, good.}  They should either be for or against the “mill dam,” and I would make them show their hands.

Parson Brownlow said in his recent New York speech:

The soldiers brought with them from the battle of Manassas, the heads of Union men that were killed, and held them by the beards and waved them, and showed them as the heads of the d----d Yankees they had captured.  This is the Secession spirit of the South.  The spirit of the vile untutored savage.  The spirit of hell and yet you have men at the North who sympathise with these murderers.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 24, 1862, p. 2

Friday, January 7, 2011

The Southern “gentlemen,” at the battle of Williamsburg . . .

. . . took a wounded New Jersey Captain prisoner, and cut off his ears.  If taken, our chivalrous friends who gave this little attention to a Jerseyman should be treated with the utmost leniency and distinguished consideration.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 24, 1862, p. 2

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Awful Rebel Outrages

Just above where we are lying, on the Tennessee shore, in Lauderdale county, resides a family formerly of Iowa, who lived there for the past four of five years and have witnessed the workings of secession in this vicinity. They say that immediately after the declarations that Tennessee had gone out of the Union, bands of armed men went prowling about the country, robbing whomsoever they chose, insulting women, and forcing loyal citizens into the rebel service at the point of a bayonet. They committed the greatest outrages everywhere, and the family of which I speak were deprived of everything valuable in the house, while the head of the household was compelled to fly from home and hide in the woods at least six or seven times to avoid impressment.

A number of Union men refused to embrace treason even when threatened with death, and those brave spirits were carried off and executed by the mob. The wife of the Iowa man, says a great many were hanged, and that she herself knows of six who were suspended from a tree within two miles of her own dwelling, and left a prey to the buzzards and crows. Their bodies were afterward taken down and buried, but not before the rebel outlaws were at a safe distance, as the people were fearful, and without reason, that had it been known the rights of sepulture had been given the poor martyrs, those who performed that common act of charity would probably have shared their fate.

The woman says that one of the Union men who had been impressed and afterward deserted more perhaps because he believed his family were starving than from his abhorrence of joining so unholy a cause, was captured in Lauderdale county while on his way home, and was actually nailed to a tree and left their to perish by inches. The man was found there a week after, merely by accident, as he had been gagged to prevent his outcries, and thus deprive him of all hope of release, and taken to the house of a neighbor. The unfortunate victim was still alive, but so much exhausted from exposure, famine and pain, that he died on the second day after his release, notwithstanding every effort was made to save his life. This story seem most improbably; [too] horrible for belief; but the woman, who has no motive for misrepresentation, declares it true, and I can see no good reason for discrediting her account of the unnatural, cruel and entirely monstrous transaction. – {Ft. Pillow Cor. Of N. Y. Tribune.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 10, 1862, p. 3