Street Rumors

Somebody stared the rumor yesterday, and it soon spread over the city, not withstanding it was based on a letter received, that Gen. McClellan had been defeated, or at least retired from the siege of Yorktown. The telegraph is sometimes slow, but it is yet a little faster than the mails. A writer in the Cincinnati Times mentioned that a new regiment from a State whose troops seized a steamboat and refused to return to battle. Citizens forthwith construed that State into Iowa, and assigned the discredit of the act either the 15th or 16th regiment, they being both new. It turns out that the regiment alluded to was from Ohio, and neither one of those alluded to ran. At least at the present time we have no knowledge of such being the case, though we should blame no regiment of raw troops very much if they did fall back rather hastily on the first day. Dr. Reilly, correspondent of the Chicago Tribune says “We would we could be spared the pain of recording the shame of some of the Ohio regiments who ran at the first fire or without a shot. One of these regiments rushed down helter-skelter to the river and took possession of a steamer in waiting for the wounded, nor could the be dispossessed.”

– Published in the Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday Morning, April 16, 1862