Special Correspondence of the Chicago Times.
NASHVILLE, Tenn., May 9.
Gen. Dumont, who came, saw and over came, returned Wednesday night from Lebanon, and bringing with him one hundred and sixty-five of the prisoners taken in the brief but glorious fight. The General is somewhat crusty in style, and when he first took command of this post, a few very loyal people were offended by his manner. But his prompt treatment of the rebels had begun to overcome their objections to his style, even before the battle at Lebanon. – Since the victory, I suppose it is safe to declare him a favorite with them. They call him “Old Tiger,” and say he is the man for the moment. Though I have not been able to get the details of the action direct from officers engaged in it, all accounts agree in giving our troops credit for the utmost intrepidity and coolness. I have been told that Gen. Dumont was himself in the thickets of the enemy’s fire, and had two horses killed under him.
After Col. Wolford, of the Kentucky cavalry was wounded, he was taken prisoner by the enemy, but was rescued by Capt. Smith, one of his own regiment, after the banditti had carried him twelve miles with them in their flight. It said the pirate John Morgan lost his favorite black mare, killed in action. He found another fleet horse, however, and managed to save his bacon. His servant and bother were taken. But the most remarkable capture was that of Mr. Hooper Harris, of this city, the bloody-minded Captain, who, in company with his superior officer, Col. McNairy, or at least in his name, published, last fall, in one of the Nashville papers, an advertisement for blood-hounds to be used in hunting down East Tennessee Union men.
These murderous marauders, who set at defiance all the rules and usages of civilized warfare, had not been in the city twelve hours before their wives, sisters and cousins, who would have clapped their hands in exultation if Morgan could have made his way to Nashville and murdered Gov. Johnson in his bed, where crowding his office with applications for permission to hold interviews with their relations of the banditti. Such is the brazen front of treason! But the law-abiding are ever in greater danger of too much kindness than of too great severity. The man whose life they sought above all others granted to many the favor they asked. Do you think such kindness will lead them to repentance? No. The recipients will go away thirsting for his blood.
I regret to learn, just as I mail this letter, there are fears entertained that Col. Wolford will not recover. He was treated most inhumanly by the rebels, who attempted to carry him off, being forced, though scarcely able to support himself in the saddle, and suffering excruciating pain, to ride at full speed. Our loss in killed, if Colonel Wolford survives, amounts only to nine. There are two or three missing. The citizens of Lebanon deny firing from their houses; yet there can be little doubt of it. Officers of Gen. Dumont’s staff saw men fire from windows at them, while there were women with them in the same room. Such conduct was the height of cowardice, whether done by soldiers or citizens; and I can’t believe women would have remained in a room from which soldiers were about to fire. The firing was doubtless done by their husbands or brothers, inmates of the houses.
One Federal officer states, I learn from the gentleman to whom the statement was made, that he plainly saw a citizen of Lebanon crawling on his hands and knees, behind a fence, with a rifle, to shoot at our men. As he rose to discharge it, a government soldier shot him through the head. Persons ran out of a house, and hastily drew in his dead body. That the cowardly murderers should now deny their crime, is but natural.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 17, 1862, p. 2
