Wednesday, December 12, 2012

December 12 - Tennessee Civil War Notes

12, Report of negative reactions to the Confederate draft in Nashville ca. December 6, 1861.

 

The Louisville Correspondent of the Cincinnati Gazette writes, under date of the twelfth of December, 1861, the following facts relative to the attempt of the Tennessee authorities to draft soldiers:


"I have news from Nashville to the sixth [Dec. 6th]. Indignation of Gov. Harris' orders to raise troops by draft from the militia was intense, even among the secessionists. The Daily Gazette denounced it in unmeasured terms, declaring that it was worse than Lincoln's call for men to 'subdue the South.' In the fourth ward of Nashville, Capt. Patterson refused to obey orders for conscription, but was afterward forced to obedience by a threat of court-martial. In South-Nashville, on the second inst., a mob of more than one hundred men rushed upon the Governor's officers, and broke up the boxes used in drafting. A fight ensued between the Confederate officers and the people, in which two persons were killed and ten or twelve wounded.


"Gov. Harris was compelled to keep his room at the St. Cloud up to the time my informant left, under strong guard, for fear of assassination by the incensed people. He had received many anonymous letters threatening his life. Col. Henry Calibourne, of the militia, was also afraid to show his head on the streets.


"The writer further states that J. O. Griffith, financial proprietor of the Nashville Union and American, original secessionist, and Hugh McCrea, an Irish original secessionist, were among those drawn for militi[a] service. There wholesale dry goods merchants, Alfred Adams, Tom Fife, and W. S. Akin, had also been selected to shoulder the musket. Some wealthy persons offered as high as two thousand dollars for substitutes."


Cincinnati Gazette, December 12, 1861. 


As cited in Rebellion Record, Vol. 4. p. 25.

 

 

12, Pup Tents

We have all seen the long wagon trains that encumbers our Army on the march and we know how large a part is taken up with bulky tents that usually fail to reach us when we need them worse is rainy weather. Our movements are frequently delayed by the necessity for keeping them under our protecting wing. Morgan and Wheeler the rough riders of the Confederacy are wont to swoop down upon them at unexpected times and places. They are seldom able to carry away the wagons so the torch usually reduces them to blackened piles of scrap iron while the mules gallop away with their captors without a murmur. The grapevine has for sometime been telling us that every man shall be his own baggage wagon and the report was confirmed today when Lieut. Dexter exhibited in camp the newly contrived "Shelter tent" which is to take [the] place of our "Sibleys" and each man is to carry for himself. It is nothing but a strip of canvas 6 X 10 feet which will cover about as much space as a dog house. We therefore call them "pup tents." We are expected to stretch them over a ridge pole and stake them to the ground on each side in the shape of the letter A, and then crawl under them on all fours. We measured Lieut. Weld of Co. E with one of the pup tents and found him too long at both ends and now we are waiting for instructions from the Government how to make him fit. We don't know whether to saw off the ends or to drive them in.

Diary of Lyman S. Widney

 

 

12, "Two More Soldiers Shot."


Two Indiana soldiers were shot, and one of them killed, at a house of ill fame on College street, yesterday afternoon. The two women occupying the apartment where the men received their wounds, were arrested and taken before Capt. Moshier the Chief of Military Police. The statement of one of these women, Emily Elizabeth Clinton, is to the effect that her man's name is John Moore; that she was born in Missouri and raised in Hamilton county, Tennessee, that the two men who were shot entered the house yesterday afternoon, and sat by the fire about fifteen minutes when a soldier rode up and threw rocks at the door, or knocked with his pistol or gun; that one of the men went to the door and asked "What you want, friend?" when the soldier on horseback asked if there was any one in the house belonging to the Tenth cavalry. The man at the door replied "No; there are only two Indianians here," when the soldier fired and the man fell; he fired again, and shot the other man in the cheek. Witness ran out, and seeing the soldier stopped her as she was running around the house; jerked the pistol from him, pulled off the caps, and threw the pistol away; does not know where the pistol is; it was a six-shooter; the man had on an overcoat and hat, with sabre, sword and pistol; they were all sitting before the fire when the soldier rode up to the door; the man who was shot through the cheek was named Sam; witness had seen him only before; had never seen either of the other two before. Mary Kelly, the other woman arrested, denied al knowledge of the men, and related about the same tale as to the shooting. Capt Moshier made a searching examination, and believing the woman knew more than they were willing to tell, he committed them both to jail. The body of the dead soldier was removed, and the wounded man was removed to Hospital No. 3.


Nashville Dispatch, December 13, 1864

 

 


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