March 22-April 1, 1863 Brigadier General John Pegram, Provisional Army Confederate States, led this raid went into KY to appropriate cattle to feed Rebel troops. The, 1st, 2nd Tenn. Regts. and 16th Tenn. Battalion participated. The Rebel force rampaged through the Knoxville environs for a few days, especially at Beaver Creek, during the raid. In the end Brigadier-General Pegram later reported: "As regards the object of the expedition (the beef-cattle), agents found many less in the counties we entered than had been represented. This was because large numbers had recently been driven out by the agents of the United States Government. We started with about 750, and crossed over the river with 537."
OR, Ser. I, Vol. 23, pt. I, p.173
22, Confederates destroy private ferries on the Obion River
UNION CITY, March 23, 1864.
Brig.-Gen. BRAYMAN, Cmdg. District of Cairo:
My private scout has just arrived and brings the information that Gen. Forrest is at Jackson with a large force, estimated at from 6,000 to 7,000. On Tuesday [22nd] they were destroying private ferries on the Obion, doubtless with the view of preventing information from crossing. Detachments had reached Milan. The above is entirely reliable.
ISAAC R. HAWKINS, Col., Cmdg.
OR, Ser. I, Vol. 32, pt. III, pp. 130-131.
March 22, 1864, The effects of Civil War upon women and children in East Tennessee
Affairs in East Tennessee.
A refugee from Tennessee, who has just left our lines there, gives the most deplorable accounts of the situation of the unhappy people of that State. Both classes, Unionists and Confederates, have come under the ban of the two armies, and what property has been spared by one has been appropriated by the other. Most of the residents consist solely of women and children, and these have been stripped of all save what they have upon their backs, and the few blankets that protect them from the cold at night. They are clad in cotton rags, bare foot and hungry, and live only on the meagre allowance they have managed to buy or otherwise secrete. Negroes, once the property of well to do farmers, have returned to their homes, backed by Yankee troops and bayonets, and perpetrated unnameable enormities.—The wives and children of "rebels" are debarred from the purchase of even the necessaries of life, unless they first take the hated oath of allegiance, while hundreds and thousands have been driven into exile, and are now scattered through the army and through the more Southern States, where they seek the liberty denied them at home.
A favorite occupation of these blue-uniformed wretches, of late, has been, and still is, to march abruptly up to some quiet residence, occupied by women and children, give them twenty-four hours notice to leave, and then send them, under guard, across the lines, where they arrive penniless, friendless and alone. God only knows the sufferings that have been endured in this struggle, but as sure as he over-[ ] the destinies of mankind, just so certain is the hand of avenging justice to fall with blighting weight upon these more than diabolical oppressors.
The foregoing, from the Columbia Carolinian, we are assured by a gentleman who has been forced to leave his home in East Tennessee , is but too true. The Yankees are lording it over the unfortunate people of that section with a rod of iron. The people, as a general thing, are true to the Southern cause, and long for the day when their country will be rid of the presence of the accursed inhuman wretches who are now tyranizing over them.
Daily Constitutionalist [AUGUSTA, GA], March 22, 1864
1 comment:
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