Southern News

CHICAGO, March 27.

The Nashville Patriot, of the 21^st, received last night, has late Southern news.  It says that Mr. Yancey has arrived in New Orleans, on his return from Europe.  In response to the wishes of the people of the city he made them a speech.  We learn from a gent who saw a report in the New Orleans Picayune, that he gave an unfavorable account of his mission abroad, and he cand[id]ly admitted that the Confederate States had nothing to hope for from European sympathizers.  He advised the punishment of Great Britain by means of putting a period to the cultivation of cotton.

The New Orleans Crescent, of the 10^th inst., states that a couple of powder mills on the opposite side of the river were blown up on the 9^th, killing five workmen, and seriously injuring a soldier near by.  The loss in property was principally machinery and about 3,000 pounds of powder, being all the stock of that article on hand.

A letter from Huntsville to the N. O. Picayune, of the 12^th inst., giving an account of operations subsequent to the fall of Donelson, says the provisional government of Kentucky is with Gen. Crittenden’s Brigade, the capital of Kentucky being located in a Sibley tent, near the headquarters of that General.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Friday Morning, March 28, 1862, p. 1

NASHVILLE, Tenn., March 21 [1862].

Southern advices received here say that Yancey had arrived at New Orleans, and made a speech, avowing that no help can be expected from England or France, and urging retaliation by stopping cotton cultivation.

The late provisional government of Kentucky is held in a Sibley tent near the headquarters of the rebel Gen. Crittenden.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Saturday Morning, March 22, 1862, p. 1

Geo. B. Crittenden

The Kentucky rebels are highly indignant at the charge of cowardice and treachery, raised in Nashville, against Gen. Geo. B. Crittenden, on account of the defeat of Zollicoffer.  One of them writing to the Bowling Green Courier, says:

It is the duty of every brother exile of a gallant man to hurl back in the teeth of the base scullions who dare to make it, the foul charge of treason and cowardice.  And in one case, at least, that duty shall be performed with alacrity and the most hearty good will.  The man who says George B. Crittenden is tainted with either cowardice or treason, is a blacker-hearted liar than the devil himself, and he who would, at such a time as this, when the chivalric spirit of a gallant man is chafing with defeat – unavoidable defeat – heap denunciations on him to weigh him down when he is temporarily fallen, would, had he lived in that time, underbid Judas Iscariot, and sold his master for twenty pieces of silver.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Tuesday Morning, February 18, 1862, p. 2

From Tennessee

A gentleman who has made his way from Nashville, through the lines of both armies has informed the editor of the Louisville Democrat that Zollicoffer was averse to attacking Thomas, and when ordered to do so by Crittenden he said with tears in his eyes that he might as well take his men and hang them.

By this gentleman we learn that Parson Brownlow’s health is very poor. His son stated that he doubted if his father would live to reach the Union lines; and if his health would permit, he did not believe the rebel guard would let him go. It is to be hoped, however, that the defeat of Crittenden’s army, the death of Zollicoffer, and the panic with evidently now prevails all through east Tennessee, together with Gen. Thomas’ advance, will open the way for the safe arrival of the parson in a land of freedom.

This gentleman is on his way to see Andy Johnson and reports that the rebels have seized Johnson’s house, and turned it into a hospital, and confiscating all his property; that in order to save his mother from the most fiendish persecution, one of Johnson’s sons had taken the oath to support the rebel cause, or at least not to furnish aid and comfort to the Unionists. Another son is hiding among the hills, and has been since last December, looking with eager longing eyes for the approach of the Union forces and the relieve from a life of wretchedness.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Monday Morning, February 10, 1862, p. 2

Gen. Crittenden In Trouble

The Memphis Avalanche has a detailed account of treachery on the part of General Crittenden, of the Southern army, in endeavoring to transmit to the Northern army papers revealing the character of the rebel fortifications at Mill Spring, the number, and the troops, the amount of provisions on hand, &c. The papers, it says, were entrusted to a negro to deliver; the negro was pursued and shot, and the papers recovered. It says also that Crittenden was arrested and is now a prisoner. The Nashville Gazette attributes the defeat of the Confederates and the death of Zollicoffer to the drunkenness of Crittenden, and alluding to an investigation, says “We shall feel some little astonishment if this investigation does not also connect with Crittenden’s crime of drunkenness the greater sins of treason, treachery and cowardice.”

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Monday Morning, February 10, 1862, p. 2

In Zollicoffer’s entrenchments . . .

. . . among Major General George B. Crittenden’s private baggage, Lieut. Colonel Kise of the 10th Indiana found a breastplate which the General either wore on the battle field and found to weighty to carry further, or else intended to put on and in the frenzy of his fear, forgot to make use of it. It is made of common sheet iron, of four thicknesses, riveted together, is about eighteen inches in length and fourteen inches broad. Lieut. Col. Kise has deposited it in the State Library at Indianapolis.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Monday Morning, February 10, 1862, p. 2

Our Generals

Major-Gen. Halleck is a native of Oneida County. He entered the Military academy at West Point as a cadet in 1835, stood third in the class and was brevetted Second Lieutenant of Engineers in 1839. In 1845 he was appointed First Lieutenant. In 1847 he was promoted for his gallantry in California. In 1853 he was appointed Captain of Engineers. He is the author of a book on “Bitumen and its Uses,” and a series of lectures on Military Science, delivered before the Lowell Institute, in Boston. He was a member of the Committee to draft the Constitution for the State of California; he had previously been Secretary of State for the Territory of California. In the naval and military operations on the Pacific Coast, he was Chief of Commodore Shubric’s Staff. He is an astute lawyer – a man of fortune, and is now comparatively a young man, being only 42 years of age. His grandfather now in his hundredth year, is living in the village of Western, near Utica.

Gen. Crittenden is a Kentuckian, son of the Hon. J. J. Crittenden, and brother to the rebel Gen. George B. Crittenden. When the rebels first assumed a warlike attitude in Kentucky, he took command of the Home Guards {not the stay-at home,} and checked the progress of the Rebels toward Louisville. He comes of a good stock, and gives a good account of himself.

Gen. Hurlbut is a Carolinian by birth, but a citizen of the State of Illinois. At the outbreak of our troubles, he served in Missouri under Gen. Fremont. He now commands a part of Gen. Grant’s glorious army. He has the chivalry, the courage, and the magnanimity [of] the true soldier.

Gen. Buell is a native of Ohio, a graduate of West Point, and now in the meridian of life. He has been in the service twenty years, was in the Mexican War. When the present war broke out he was in the regular service in California. Congress made him a Brig-General and gave him command of a division of the army of the Potomac. When Gen. Anderson resigned his command, Gen. Buell was appointed to take his place in the department of Ohio. It was under his supervision the army that marched from Bowling Green to Nashville was raised and disciplined. On the reconstruction of the Departments he was created a Major General. He is a man of great physical strength and powers of endurance; has light hair, blue eyes, and wears a full beard. He is 42 years of age. Though slow to move, he is terrible in execution.

– Published in the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 19, 1862

Late Southern News

The Richmond Examiner’s Charleston correspondent, under date of the 30th ult., writes as follows:

Since the drawn battle between the Monitor and Virginia, we have made up our minds that the strength of the batteries of Fort Sumter will, within the next three months, be tested by half a score of iron-sheathed monsters. We are now doing something to get ready fro them. The gunboat fever, just now so universal among the unconquerable women of the South, seems to have awakened the Navy Department from its torpor. What is now being done at the eleventh hour, by the orders of the government, should have been done twelve months ago. Since the cumbersome floating battery, intended for the reduction of Fort Sumter, was launched, our ship carpenters, as far as war vessels are concerned, have been absolutely idle, though their services could at any have been secured by the Confederacy. But the past is past, and we must all put our shoulders to the wheel for the future.

The Norfolk Day book of the 4th inst. has the following interesting item, which may be taken for what is worth:

We have a pretty strong hint that pilots acquainted with the various harbors along the Northern seaboard will speedily be in great demand, and that their services will be handsomely remunerated. It is unnecessary for us of course to say more than this, as those, interested will easily find out where to apply for further information. As the weather is getting warm, possibly some of our Southern friends intend to get up a few pic-nic excursions to a little colder climate, and it may be that they need the services of the above pilots.

The Richmond Examiner says:

The Hon. William M. Gwin, of California, who was arrested in New York some months ago and carried to Washington by Lincoln’s minions, but afterwards released, also arrive in this city yesterday, and is stopping at the Spottswood Hotel. Dr. Gwin came from Maryland by the underground railroad. He states that the Yankees intend exhausting every means to crush out the so-called “rebellion” by the first of May. The number of mechanics in the workshops of the North has been doubled, and they are now working day and night turning out iron for gunboats, as the north believes them to be their only salvation.

The same paper says:

It is suggested that Congress will take measures to check the evils which are becoming quite perceptible from the large issue of Treasury notes, and will provide adequate means for absorbing the currency. We learn that the expenditures of the Government are at the rate of two or three millions a day, and that there is a weekly addition of that sum to the currency. We here it recommended that Congress should make all future issues of Treasury notes bear interest.

All the Generals of our army of the Mississippi are now at Corinth, including Beauregard, Sidney Johnson [sic], Bragg, Polk, Crittenden, Gladden, Ruggles, Carroll, and Kirby Smith. Gen. Jackson, of Georgia is in command at Corinth.

The Richmond Examiner of April 4 contains a leading article urging the execution of the full sentence of the law upon several persons convicted of counterfeiting rebel treasury notes. – That penalty, says the examiner, is hanging by the neck until they are dead.

The Richmond Dispatch, of the 31st, announces that it is the purpose of the Provost Marshal to interpose and regulate the prices of provisions, &c., in the markets of Richmond.

– Published in the Burlington Daily Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Thursday, April 17, 1862 & the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 19, 1862