The voyage up the river from Ft. Donelson to this place
yesterday afternoon was quite a pleasant one.
The river just now is boasting of unwanted proportions, inundating all
the bottoms, and – in some cases, compelling the inmates of the farm houses
along the river banks to flee for safety to the neighboring heights. – In some
instances a solitary hog, cow or other domestic quadruped, left behind on a stray
yard or two of dry land, beside some deserted house, would present a most
mournfully ludicrous picture of unwarrantable desertion, and would gaze at the
passing steamers with an earnestness be speaking little or none of the
nonchalance of the man of old who is reputed to have had as little faith in the
extent of “the shower” as of the efficiency of the Ark. I fear that some of them have had to swim for
[it ere] this. There are no villages
along the river in the thirty five or forty miles intervening, between Donelson
and Clarksville. Farm houses, however,
are frequent, interspersed here and there with mills and foundries, which, in
days gone by, were of considerable importance hereabouts. One of these iron mills (Cumberland Iron
Works) twelve miles above Dover, has been of great aid to the rebels and,
judging from the smouldering ruins now only left, must have been of no little
magnitude. It was burned by order of
Commodore Foote the day of the surrender of Donelson. – The private residence
of the proprietor, and the smaller dwellings of the workmen, which were left
unharmed, are very neat structures, and in all the glory of their white paint,
looked very pretty in the afternoon sunshine.
Many of the farm houses, too, are quite fine residences with well built
barns and out houses, bespeaking of good farms and prosperous owners. From some of these houses the Federal flag
was waving. From others a piece of white
cloth was visible, and from still others, no insignia at all was displayed, but
the closed windows and doors, and apparent absence of all white people about
the premises, told, plainly enough the sentiments of the owners thereof. Not a few, however, waved a cheerful welcome
to the passing troops, and it was easy to see that the re-appearance of the old
flag was the cause of no little gratification.
At one point where towards night we stopped to “wood up,” the owner of a
flour mill adjoining claimed to be a good Union man, and spoke most touchingly
of the sad state to which the country had been brought by the interruption of
all business. A present of a hat full of
coffee, a luxury which he said he had not seen for six months, rendered him one
of the happiest mortals I have recently seen.
Clarksville, from which I now write, has a population of
5,000 or 6,000, and before the war was wont to be considered one of the most
flourishing business points in the State.
With a goodly number of fine business blocks, and not a few elegant
private residences, it would be considered a pleasant town in any part of the
country. With stores closed and houses
deserted it has now, however, a very Sunday like aspect. It would seem though, that hardly so many of
the citizens as would be supposed from a glance at the apparently deserted
residences, have left the place. Not a
few within the last day or two have been noticed, badger like, taking a survey
of the surroundings from their hiding places, and discovering that our troops
were neither vandals nor any other species of barbarians, have concluded to
show themselves. This afternoon I have
noticed even many of the gentler portion of the population sunning themselves on
the porticos, and gazing with no little interest upon the federal passers by.
The place was formally occupied by our troops several days
since, the enemy having deserted it two or three days before or, in other
words, as soon as they could get out of it after the reception of the news of
the surrender. The evacuation of the
town, according to all accounts, was a most sudden as well as ludicrous
operation. On Saturday the people of the
place and the two or three regiments garrisoned here, received intelligence
that the Yankees were rapidly being whipped back to their Northern homes, and a
general jollification was at once indulged in.
But, alas, there’s many a slip between the cup and the lip. They had hardly begun to feel the effect of
their carousal, when, lo! and behold who should appear upon the scene but the
brilliant heroes, Floyd and Pillow, with some items of information which hardly
confirmed their previous veracious accounts of the evening before. There was then mounting in hot haste sure enough. The Lincoln gunboats which according to the
yesterday’s accounts had all been sunk or crippled, were supposed to be in
immediate proximity, and but few of the doughty champions of the South thought
it best to stand upon the order of their going.
An Alabama regiment stationed here chartered a steamboat fortunately
lying near by, and went at once. A
colonel of a Tennessee regiment gave orders to his men who occupied the
fortifications below the city to prepare to march, and upon visiting the fort
an hour afterwards found only eighteen
of his men left to accompany him. The
rest of them stealing horses, mules and every description of conveyance
attainable, were already in full pursuit of their Alabama brethren in arms. I need not state that Pillow and Floyd did
not either tarry long in Jericho, but pressed on with the speediest of
them. It had only been about a week
before that both of these distinguished rebels, together with Buckner, had passed
through Clarksville, and had received not a little lionizing. Both Pillow and Floyd had been called on to make
speeches, and responded in the most bloodthirsty of efforts making glad the
hearts of all rebeldom hereabouts by the promise of a speedy extermination of
each and every Lincolnite who had dared to pollute their soil. Referring to the surrender of Fort Henry by
Gen. Tilghman, Pillow said, with peculiar grammatical elegance of the South –
But, gentlemen, I never did surrender,
and so help me God, never will surrender.
Me, and Gen. Buckner and Gen. Floyd and our gallant troops, are now going
down there, and we will sweep every Yankee son of them back to their frozen
homes. (Great applause and hurrahs for
Pillow). General Floyd also presented
himself and made equally brilliant promises.
General Buckner, who alone of the unworthy trio said nothing, was the
only one who stuck to his troops, and included himself in the “ungenerous and unchivalrous”
terms which Gen. Grant saw fit to impose upon him. I need not add that upon their return,
neither Floyd nor Pillow stopped to favor the good people of Clarksville with
any further promises of Yankee extermination and I doubt very much whether they
would have taken much stock in his promises, even if he had.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye,
Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 8, 1862, p. 3
