The army under Gen. C. F. Smith, (Paducah Smith, as he used
to be called) which left Fort Henry several days ago, for an expedition up the
Tennessee river, has disembarked at Savannah, 14 miles north of the State
line. Reports say that Gen. Lew. Wallace’s
division had marched across to Purdy, McNairy County, which is six miles west
of Savannah, burning a bridge and taking up the track of the railroad
connecting Corinth, Mississippi, with Jackson, Tennessee. The bridge destroyed we take to be a
structure over the Hatchie river. The
railroad referred to must have been lately put in running order by the rebels,
as it was still unfinished but a short time ago. The destruction of the bridge and track seems
to have been very timely, preventing a train of the Confederate troops, which
Gen. Johnston was sending to the relief of Island No. 10, from going up.
We suppose the next move of Gen. Smith will be overland to
Corinth, which is about twenty-two miles from Savannah, on the Memphis and
Charleston railroad. The distance from
Corinth to Memphis, we observe is stated in some of the newspapers to be sixty
miles, but the time table of the road itself makes it ninety-three. The possession of Corinth will cut the
communication between Johnston’s and Beauregard’s forces, and this will be all
that Gen. Smith will need to do until the rebels fall back upon Forts Pillow
and Randolph. The Confederates are
already hemmed in on three sides, so far as the Mississippi Valley is
concerned, and it is a gone case with them. – Mo. Repub
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye,
Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 22, 1862, p. 2
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