April 12 - Tennessee Civil War Notes

12, Home manufacturing on small farms in Lincoln County, Tennessee.
The Industry of the Women of the South.--A letter from Lincoln county, Tenn., says: On the small farms throughout this section all is life, activity, and industry. Many a woman who never before held a plow, is now seen in the cornfield.--many a young girl who would have blushed at the thought before of handling a plow line, now naturally and unconsciously cries "gee up" Dobbin, to the silvery tones which the good brute readily responds, as if a pleasure to comply with so gentle a command. 

Many a Ruth, as of old, is seen to-day binding and gleaning in the wheat field, but, alas! no Boaz is there to control or to comfort. The picture of the rural soldier's home is at this time but a picture of primitive life. Throughout the country, at every farm house and cottage, the regular sound of the loom, as the shuttle flies to and fro, with the whirl of the spinning wheel, is heard, telling of home industry. Cotton fabrics, of neat, pretty figures, the production of home manufacture, are now almost wholly worn in Tennessee, instead of calicoes. 
Southern Watchman [Athens, Georgia], August 12, 1863. 

 

 

12, Brigadier General John Beatty's word of warning to historians of the battle of Stones River
The historian who accepts these reports as reliable, and permits himself to be guided by them through all the windings of a five-days' battle, with the expectation of finally allotting to each one of forty brigades the proper credit, will probably not be successful. My report was called for late o­ne evening, written hastily, without having before me the reports of my regimental commanders, and is complete, unsatisfactory to me, and unjust to my brigade.
Beatty, Citizen Soldier, p. 252.

 

12, Juvenile delinquency in occupied Nashville
"Recorder's Court."
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Twelve boys, arrested by the military on Thursday [14th], were then called up, charged with disorderly conduct and vagrancy. The following are their names: William Taylor, of Baltimore, John Ryan, of Washington, D.C., arrived here three days ago with the eleventh army corps. Jas. McClusky, of New York, came here a few days ago, with the 14th Michigan; Jno. Burns and Joseph Merker, of Louisville, who say they have been driving treams; Charles Henry Anderson, of Philadelphia, who came here with the 15th Pennsylvania cavalry; Hugh Muray, of Michigan; Louis Evans, of Philadelphia; Thomas Moran, Charley Talman, and Edward Wade, of Nashville; and Tom Watts, of nowhere in particular. These boys vary in age from eight or nine perhaps to sixteen , an are about as hard a looking dozen as can well be picked up anywhere. Mr. Cliff, a Government watchman at the Chattanooga depot, deposed that [the] defendants were all the time idling about the depot, day and night. They had taken wagon bodies and fixed up a house to sleep in; they had been in the neighborhood for several weeks -- perhaps months. On Thursday they were very troublesome, and witness ordered them away; defendants laughed at him, and he went for the guard, when they began pelting him with mud. Witness has seen them eating on the streets; does not know where they belong. Two or three other witnesses were examined, one of whom said the boys generally slept in wagons back of the camp; he had caught several of them stealing, and identified four of those present as among the guilty parties. All of them were ordered to the work-house for future disposition. What will be done with them we cannot say, but we would suggest that all who do not belong to Nashville be sent home, consigned to the Mayor or Chief of Police of the town whence the came, who will no doubt see that they are properly disposed of. With regard to our own boys, it is difficult to suggest any plan of reformation under existing circumstances; but we present this as another evidence of the necessity of a house of correction for juveniles. Some of the bad boys of Nashville have very respectable parents, whose hearts are nearly broken in consequence of the disgrace brought upon them by the conduct of their children, who are grown beyond the control of their parents, and roam the city a large, night and day. Something must be done to reform these boys, and that very speedily, or we shall be overrun with burglars, and thieves, and incendiaries, or our own raising. A lodgment in the work-house for a day or two is no punishment to most of them. The fare better there than when sleeping in wagons or in depot sheds. Try them in the dungeon for forty-eight hours with nothing to eat by bread and water; it may serve at least a temporary check upon their wicked life. 
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Nashville Dispatch, April 16, 1864.