A gentleman of integrity and intelligence, who resides at
Memphis, and who left that city one week ago, passed through this city
yesterday. He made his way through the
rebel lines by bribing the sentinels, paying two of them the sum of five
dollars each to induce them to permit him to pass. When he left Memphis, it was understood there
by the best informed persons that there were from fifty to sixty thousand troops
between Memphis and Huntsville, Alabama, which included all the effective force
of Beauregard that could be brought to bear against the combined armies of
Generals Grant and Buell. Our informant
says that Gen. A. S. Johnson [sic] has expressed the opinion that the
Confederates could take no fortified position and hold it for any great length
of time, as all such positions could be successfully flanked by the Federal
army. Hence he had determined, and in
that determination he is supported by Gen. Beauregard, to seek an open fight at
an early day upon a field of his own selection somewhere in the vicinity of
Corinth, Mississippi, the location offering admirable facilities for such an
encounter, and have everything in the course of preparation for the destruction
of the city, if the fortunes of the war should turn against them. Our informant says that the better citizens
of Memphis, many of whom have all along sympathized with the rebellion, are
thoroughly discouraged with the prospects before them, and that if they could a
satisfactory assurance that their lives and property would be protected, they
would return to their former allegiance. – {Lou. Jour. 5th.
– Published in the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye,
Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 12, 1862, p. 2
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