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re: 150 years ago this day...
Posted on 11/12/13 at 5:02 am to BadLeroyDawg
Posted on 11/12/13 at 5:02 am to BadLeroyDawg
Thursday, 12 November 1863
The Army of the Cumberland was eating better these days, thanks to the opening of the "cracker line" which greatly shortened the distances required for food to be brought in. Mere avoidance of starvation, however, did not mean that they were ready for battle to break them out of Chattanooga, where they had been besieged since the debacle of Chickamauga Creek. General Hiram U. Grant, who had fired commanding General William Rosecrans and taken over the scene himself, was awaiting one final factor he felt necessary to get the show on the road: General William T. Sherman and his 15th Army Corps. That unit was accustomed to fighting and winning. The other reinforcements which had been provided, two Army of the Potomac corps under Gen. Hooker, had not had such good fortune in combat.
A very spirited skirmish with the Confederate forces occurred at a point about ten miles from the Cumberland Gap, in Virginia. A forage train of twenty-one wagons had been sent out with a guard of twenty-eight men. The wagons were loaded, and started for the Gap, with no appearance of danger, when suddenly a small party of seventy partisan guerrillas rushed from a convenient ambush, overpowering the guard, and compelling a surrender. The officers' clothing was immediately transferred to Confederate backs, and their wallets appropriated. Ten minutes after the capture, Colonel Lemert, commanding the forces at the Gap, appeared in a bend of the road. Whilst the Rebels were approaching, Colonel Lemert immediately led the charge with ten men of the Fourth battalion Ohio volunteer cavalry. A fierce hand-to-hand sabre-fight occurred for a few minutes, when the Confederates left the field. The train and prisoners were recaptured, eleven of the enemy captured, two killed and four wounded, and some small arms and horses taken. An exciting chase of ten miles failed to overtake the fleeing Rebels.
Major General Dabney H. Maury, in command of the Confederate forces at Mobile, Alabama, sent the following to Adjutant General Cooper, at the war department at Richmond, Virginia: The following dispatch from Tunica, Mississippi, was received yesterday, dated tenth instant, from Colonel Harry Maury, commanding the Fifteenth cavalry regiment: 'We dashed in yesterday above Bayou Sara on a plundering party of Yankees, three hundred strong, and drove them to their ironclads with great slaughter. We brought off their wagon trains and twenty-five prisoners from under the broadsides of their gunboats. Only three wounded of ours.'
Two bridges and trestle-works on the Tennessee and Alabama Railroad at Caligula, near Lynnville, Tennessee, were destroyed by a party of Confederate cavalry under the command of the partisan guerrilla Roddy.
A cannonading between the Confederate batteries on Lookout Mountain and the Union forces at Moccasin Point, took place today.
At the Confederate Senate, in session at Richmond, Virginia, Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, offered the resolution: Resolved, That in the present condition of the country, Congress ought, with the least practicable delay, to enact the following:
1. To declare every white male person residing in the Confederate States, and capable of bearing arms, to be in the military service of the country.
2. To repeal all laws authorizing substitutes or granting exemptions.
3. To authorize the President to issue his proclamation requiring all male persons claiming and receiving foreign protection to make their election within sixty days, to take up arms or quit the country.
4. To detail from those in the military service such only as are absolutely needed in civil pursuits, having reference in making such details to competency alone.
5. To levy a direct tax of----per cent on every kind of property, according to its value in confederate notes, including the notes themselves.
6. To make confederate notes a legal tender in payment of debts, after the expiration of six months.
7. To prohibit the buying and selling of gold and silver coin, or the notes on banks in the United States, or United States Treasury notes, during the war, under heavy penalties, or, in lieu thereof, to prohibit "running the blockade" by individuals, under pain of forfeiture of the goods brought in, and imprisonment during the war.
8. Declare these laws war measures, and make those who violate them amenable to the military courts.
The City Council of Richmond, Virginia, made an appropriation of sixty thousand dollars for the purchase of a family residence for General Robert Edward and Mary Custis Lee. This was due to some 14,000 troops having crossed the Potomac River on May 24, 1861, and having seized their 1,100-acre estate at Arlington without compensation as the Constitution required.
The Army of the Cumberland was eating better these days, thanks to the opening of the "cracker line" which greatly shortened the distances required for food to be brought in. Mere avoidance of starvation, however, did not mean that they were ready for battle to break them out of Chattanooga, where they had been besieged since the debacle of Chickamauga Creek. General Hiram U. Grant, who had fired commanding General William Rosecrans and taken over the scene himself, was awaiting one final factor he felt necessary to get the show on the road: General William T. Sherman and his 15th Army Corps. That unit was accustomed to fighting and winning. The other reinforcements which had been provided, two Army of the Potomac corps under Gen. Hooker, had not had such good fortune in combat.
A very spirited skirmish with the Confederate forces occurred at a point about ten miles from the Cumberland Gap, in Virginia. A forage train of twenty-one wagons had been sent out with a guard of twenty-eight men. The wagons were loaded, and started for the Gap, with no appearance of danger, when suddenly a small party of seventy partisan guerrillas rushed from a convenient ambush, overpowering the guard, and compelling a surrender. The officers' clothing was immediately transferred to Confederate backs, and their wallets appropriated. Ten minutes after the capture, Colonel Lemert, commanding the forces at the Gap, appeared in a bend of the road. Whilst the Rebels were approaching, Colonel Lemert immediately led the charge with ten men of the Fourth battalion Ohio volunteer cavalry. A fierce hand-to-hand sabre-fight occurred for a few minutes, when the Confederates left the field. The train and prisoners were recaptured, eleven of the enemy captured, two killed and four wounded, and some small arms and horses taken. An exciting chase of ten miles failed to overtake the fleeing Rebels.
Major General Dabney H. Maury, in command of the Confederate forces at Mobile, Alabama, sent the following to Adjutant General Cooper, at the war department at Richmond, Virginia: The following dispatch from Tunica, Mississippi, was received yesterday, dated tenth instant, from Colonel Harry Maury, commanding the Fifteenth cavalry regiment: 'We dashed in yesterday above Bayou Sara on a plundering party of Yankees, three hundred strong, and drove them to their ironclads with great slaughter. We brought off their wagon trains and twenty-five prisoners from under the broadsides of their gunboats. Only three wounded of ours.'
Two bridges and trestle-works on the Tennessee and Alabama Railroad at Caligula, near Lynnville, Tennessee, were destroyed by a party of Confederate cavalry under the command of the partisan guerrilla Roddy.
A cannonading between the Confederate batteries on Lookout Mountain and the Union forces at Moccasin Point, took place today.
At the Confederate Senate, in session at Richmond, Virginia, Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, offered the resolution: Resolved, That in the present condition of the country, Congress ought, with the least practicable delay, to enact the following:
1. To declare every white male person residing in the Confederate States, and capable of bearing arms, to be in the military service of the country.
2. To repeal all laws authorizing substitutes or granting exemptions.
3. To authorize the President to issue his proclamation requiring all male persons claiming and receiving foreign protection to make their election within sixty days, to take up arms or quit the country.
4. To detail from those in the military service such only as are absolutely needed in civil pursuits, having reference in making such details to competency alone.
5. To levy a direct tax of----per cent on every kind of property, according to its value in confederate notes, including the notes themselves.
6. To make confederate notes a legal tender in payment of debts, after the expiration of six months.
7. To prohibit the buying and selling of gold and silver coin, or the notes on banks in the United States, or United States Treasury notes, during the war, under heavy penalties, or, in lieu thereof, to prohibit "running the blockade" by individuals, under pain of forfeiture of the goods brought in, and imprisonment during the war.
8. Declare these laws war measures, and make those who violate them amenable to the military courts.
The City Council of Richmond, Virginia, made an appropriation of sixty thousand dollars for the purchase of a family residence for General Robert Edward and Mary Custis Lee. This was due to some 14,000 troops having crossed the Potomac River on May 24, 1861, and having seized their 1,100-acre estate at Arlington without compensation as the Constitution required.
1
Posted on 11/13/13 at 4:59 am to BadLeroyDawg
Friday, 13 November 1863
General Robert E. Lee and his men had experienced a rough summer. Heavy action in the spring, constant movement, finally the desperate move into Maryland and Pennsylvania culminating in the three days of the Gettysburg Campaign. Even after that, movement if not active battle, had been constant. This had been hard on the men of the Army of Northern Virginia, harder on their supplies and equipment. It had, however, been hardest of all on the members of the army least able to protest: the horses and other beasts of burden. General Lee sent a telegram from Orange Court House, Virginia, to Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Richmond today, imploring him to find a supply of food for the animals, saying that they had had only three pounds of corn per day per horse for the last five days. Davis ordered other supplies delayed until corn could be shipped in.
A skirmish took place near Natchez, Mississippi, between company H, of the Seventy-first Illinois regiment, and a few volunteers of the Sixth Mississippi regiment of loyal colored troops, and the Confederate cavalry under William Wirt Adams. The circumstances are as follows: The wagons of the above command were sent out for forage, the company just designated was detailed as an escort, and left camp at seven A. M. After proceeding about one mile and a half a small force of rebels was seen, the company halted, and a messenger was dispatched to inform the commanding officer, and report for instructions. Immediately on receipt of the news, Colonel Smith took the camp-guard and proceeded out on the Washington road, came up to where the foraging party had halted, and ordered it forward. [It is necessary here to state that this road leads to a village, bearing the same name, some six miles distant from this place, and two miles out it intersects the Palestine road, both of which run quite close together for a mile or more.] Both commands marched on to the "forks," when it was decided that Captain 0. H. Hitchcock, with his company, should proceed with the train toward Palestine, as was originally intended. Colonel Smith, taking the guard, followed the other road, and after marching more than a mile ordered a halt, and threw out a picket still farther on, as the rebels had been there but a few moments before. Presently a volley was heard, then another, and still another. He immediately "double-quicked" his men back, but arrived too late to participate in the engagement. Lieutenants Richards and Green, who were some distance in advance of the train, on horseback, met a squad of eight or ten cavalry coming around a bend in the road at full speed. They therefore fell back, hotly pursued by the rebels, who, when they [7] came in sight of the party immediately fled, and on meeting their comrades, they all joined and came back, and found the colored troops prepared to give them battle. Captain Hitchcock, not knowing the strength of his opposers, fell back a short distance, and the enemy rallied and charged furiously again. The rebel captain ordered Hitchcock to surrender, firing at the same time his revolver at Corporal John Heron, who dropped unhurt to his knees, and sent a ball through the miscreant's breast, which proved fatal. Rebel citizens state that the opposing force numbered fifty men, and acknowledge their loss to be one captain, sergeant, and two privates killed, and eight wounded. The Union loss was as follows:
Killed ? George Diegs, company H; Lewis Taylor, company H; Peter Grant, company H; Samuel Moden, company G. Wounded ? William Gallin, company B; Henry Brown, company H; Mil Beckford, company H; William Hegdon, company H; Zeno Callahan, company H; Duncan Turner, company H; John Bodly, company H.
John C. Crane, acting quartermaster at Nashville, Tennessee, in a note to Andrew Johnson, Governor of that State, says: The bearer, (colored,) Jane Woodall, is my house-servant. She is a slave, claimed by Christopher Woodall, a resident of Tennessee. It is said that he is disloyal, and on a previous occasion the military authorities prevented him from taking her.
The Governor's response. Executive office, Nashville, Tenn., November 18, 1868.
Respectfully returned. If the girl referred to within is willing to return with Mr. Woodall, she should be allowed to go, but, if not willing, she will not be compelled to go with him. Andrew Johnson, Military Governor.
In accordance with an order from the War Department, Major General John A. Logan surrendered his command of the Third division of the Seventeenth army corps. In addressing the officers and soldiers of the different brigades, he reminded them of the history the division had made for itself ? a history to be proud of; a history never to be forgotten; for it is written as with a pen of fire dipped in ink of blood on the memories and in the hearts of all. He besought them always to prove themselves as loyal in principle, as valiant in arms, as their record while under his command would show them to have been; to "...remember the glorious cause you are fighting for, remember the bleaching bones of your comrades killed on the bloody fields of Donelson, Corinth, Champion Hill, and Vicksburg, or perished by disease during the past two years of hardships and exposure ? and swear by these imperishable memories never, while life remains, to prove recreant to the trust high heaven has confided to your charge." He assured them of his continued sympathy and interest in their well-being, no matter how great a distance might separate them; and closed by heartily recommending them to their future commander, his own companion in arms, and successor, Brigadier General Mortimer Dormer Leggett.
General Robert E. Lee and his men had experienced a rough summer. Heavy action in the spring, constant movement, finally the desperate move into Maryland and Pennsylvania culminating in the three days of the Gettysburg Campaign. Even after that, movement if not active battle, had been constant. This had been hard on the men of the Army of Northern Virginia, harder on their supplies and equipment. It had, however, been hardest of all on the members of the army least able to protest: the horses and other beasts of burden. General Lee sent a telegram from Orange Court House, Virginia, to Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Richmond today, imploring him to find a supply of food for the animals, saying that they had had only three pounds of corn per day per horse for the last five days. Davis ordered other supplies delayed until corn could be shipped in.
A skirmish took place near Natchez, Mississippi, between company H, of the Seventy-first Illinois regiment, and a few volunteers of the Sixth Mississippi regiment of loyal colored troops, and the Confederate cavalry under William Wirt Adams. The circumstances are as follows: The wagons of the above command were sent out for forage, the company just designated was detailed as an escort, and left camp at seven A. M. After proceeding about one mile and a half a small force of rebels was seen, the company halted, and a messenger was dispatched to inform the commanding officer, and report for instructions. Immediately on receipt of the news, Colonel Smith took the camp-guard and proceeded out on the Washington road, came up to where the foraging party had halted, and ordered it forward. [It is necessary here to state that this road leads to a village, bearing the same name, some six miles distant from this place, and two miles out it intersects the Palestine road, both of which run quite close together for a mile or more.] Both commands marched on to the "forks," when it was decided that Captain 0. H. Hitchcock, with his company, should proceed with the train toward Palestine, as was originally intended. Colonel Smith, taking the guard, followed the other road, and after marching more than a mile ordered a halt, and threw out a picket still farther on, as the rebels had been there but a few moments before. Presently a volley was heard, then another, and still another. He immediately "double-quicked" his men back, but arrived too late to participate in the engagement. Lieutenants Richards and Green, who were some distance in advance of the train, on horseback, met a squad of eight or ten cavalry coming around a bend in the road at full speed. They therefore fell back, hotly pursued by the rebels, who, when they [7] came in sight of the party immediately fled, and on meeting their comrades, they all joined and came back, and found the colored troops prepared to give them battle. Captain Hitchcock, not knowing the strength of his opposers, fell back a short distance, and the enemy rallied and charged furiously again. The rebel captain ordered Hitchcock to surrender, firing at the same time his revolver at Corporal John Heron, who dropped unhurt to his knees, and sent a ball through the miscreant's breast, which proved fatal. Rebel citizens state that the opposing force numbered fifty men, and acknowledge their loss to be one captain, sergeant, and two privates killed, and eight wounded. The Union loss was as follows:
Killed ? George Diegs, company H; Lewis Taylor, company H; Peter Grant, company H; Samuel Moden, company G. Wounded ? William Gallin, company B; Henry Brown, company H; Mil Beckford, company H; William Hegdon, company H; Zeno Callahan, company H; Duncan Turner, company H; John Bodly, company H.
John C. Crane, acting quartermaster at Nashville, Tennessee, in a note to Andrew Johnson, Governor of that State, says: The bearer, (colored,) Jane Woodall, is my house-servant. She is a slave, claimed by Christopher Woodall, a resident of Tennessee. It is said that he is disloyal, and on a previous occasion the military authorities prevented him from taking her.
The Governor's response. Executive office, Nashville, Tenn., November 18, 1868.
Respectfully returned. If the girl referred to within is willing to return with Mr. Woodall, she should be allowed to go, but, if not willing, she will not be compelled to go with him. Andrew Johnson, Military Governor.
In accordance with an order from the War Department, Major General John A. Logan surrendered his command of the Third division of the Seventeenth army corps. In addressing the officers and soldiers of the different brigades, he reminded them of the history the division had made for itself ? a history to be proud of; a history never to be forgotten; for it is written as with a pen of fire dipped in ink of blood on the memories and in the hearts of all. He besought them always to prove themselves as loyal in principle, as valiant in arms, as their record while under his command would show them to have been; to "...remember the glorious cause you are fighting for, remember the bleaching bones of your comrades killed on the bloody fields of Donelson, Corinth, Champion Hill, and Vicksburg, or perished by disease during the past two years of hardships and exposure ? and swear by these imperishable memories never, while life remains, to prove recreant to the trust high heaven has confided to your charge." He assured them of his continued sympathy and interest in their well-being, no matter how great a distance might separate them; and closed by heartily recommending them to their future commander, his own companion in arms, and successor, Brigadier General Mortimer Dormer Leggett.
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