Sunday, August 22, 2010

Additional Details of the Gun-Boat Expedition up Tennessee River

ST. LOUIS, Feb. 13.

The Republican’s Fort Henry correspondent gives further particulars of the Tennessee river gunboat expedition. At every village the people insisted upon loading their visitors with presents, and as far as Florence the river can be navigated almost as safely as the Ohio.

Blessings, cheers and the wildest enthusiasm greeted the gunboats everywhere. – Numbers of prominent men came forward and said that should the Union army enter Tennessee, 50,000 men were ready and anxious to protect their homes, and would at once cluster around it. Under the laws commanding them to join the rebel army or lose their property, they were obliged to succumb in self-defence.

The officers of the gunboats say that it is impossible to doubt the genuineness of the greetings that everywhere met them. The rebel press is wholly under the control of the politicians, and don’t speak the people’s feelings. The secession element is principally composed of lawless portions of the community, who overawe by violence the order loving Union citizens.

At Sarama Lt. Phelps learned that a rebel cavalry regiment was encamped about a mile distant. He immediately ordered a company of 130 men, under Col. Gwin, to march against them, but the rebels hearing of the movement fled in a panic, leaving everything behind them. Their camp was burned, and a considerable quantity of arms and stores were captured.

Only one steamer, the Dunbar, now floats on the Upper Tennessee.

The Appleton Belle had 4,000 lbs. powder aboard, and when fired was purposely anchored opposite the fine residence of Judge Creevatt, a noted loyalist, and which was just completed. The building was much shattered by the explosion.

A partially finished rebel gun-boat, Eastport, is a fine fast steamer 250 feet long, very staunch, and constructed so as to be rendered shot proof, by compressed bales of cotton and iron plates.

The steamer Illinois, brought down a quantity of tobacco yesterday from Paris. A large quantity of pig iron near there will be removed as soon as possible.

The Nashville Union and American of the 5th inst. says that Gens. Beauregard, Pillow and Cheatham were there. It also contains Beauregard’s plan of battle at Manassas, and prodigious speculations as to what he will do at Columbus.

Numerous articles are copied from Southern papers, asking their government to take some measures to keep the soldiers in their service, as their term of enlistment is expiring and they are fast becoming demoralized. The papers also state that a large amount of Confederate stores are lying on the Banks of the Cumberland.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Friday Morning, February 14, 1862, p. 1

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