28, Editorial exhorting reluctant young West Tennessee men to enlist in the Confederate Army
Young Men! You who remain at home, while your more patriotic and chivalrous companions are fighting for their homes and liberties-attend to the following paragraph and take warning:
We wish our stay-at-home young men, and would-be-neutral, if there are any to know that the Federal commanders took all young men they could finding Benton and Washington counties, put arms in their hands, and them placed them in the front ranks and told them they must fight. they [sic] were compelled to take the oath, and informed that if they flinched they would be shot.
Between the two armies the poor fellow are almost sure of death.
Young Man! You have but one life before you! Each day is lost kin [to] the irrevocable past! What do you? Let not a dull regret of a wasted opportunity press you down the balance of your days, with a sense of inferiority! Bitterly may you pray some day to recall the past. It is the only prayer the Almighty refuses inexorably, to answer.
Will you sit hereafter humbly by and hear it told by others how they rushed to our country's aid in time of peril, and kept her free? Or shall your children in after time, flush with pride and glow with honest patriotism to hear the rustling of the flag under which their father fought, and mayhap bled, to make them proudly free? [1]
Jackson West Tennessee Whig, March 28, 1862.
28, A Negro teamster escapes execution during the battle of Stones River, an excerpt from the letter of Amandus Silsby to his parents
March 28
Camp near Murfreesboro, Mar. 28
My dear father and mother [sic]:
….Gen. "Rosy" has not organized any negro regiments, I do not know whether the rebels killed all the negroes teamsters they were enabled to carry off with them. I saw them shoot two of them. I saw one of the poor fellows make his escape but Sambo [sic] thought a moment before his time was up. Seeing them coming, he tried to escape, but two of the rebels riding up, commanded him to stop! He stood trembling, while one of them asked him what he was doing there with the Federals. "I-I-I- was only go'an 'long wid de a'mee" "Well come along with us, we'll soon teach you what it is to be caught among the Yankees." Shortly after they were obliged to leave Sambo [sic], and Skedaddled [sic] from our cavalry, much to the joy of the negro, who jumping up and down shouted "Go it Bully! Give 'em H__ll!" [sic] I was glad to get away took for it went very much against the grain to hear their boasting talk, which riled my temper considerably….
Silsby Correspondence, March 28, 1863.
28, "CLEANLINESS." Strict public health orders in Nashville
Capt. Wm. D. Chamberlain, the Chief of the Military Police of this post, has issued a very important order-one which interest every citizen, and which we hope every person will aid the Chief in carrying out. The following is the order we allude to. Read it carefully, and file it away:
Office, Chief of Police
Nashville, Tenn., March 28, 1864
In accordance with Special Order No. 76, dated March 22, it is hereby ordered:
I. That occupants of Stores, Restaurants, and Dwelling Houses, will be required to clean their yards and cellars, and have the offal removed, within forth-eight hours from the date of this order. No garbage or dirt of any kind will be allowed to accumulate on any premises within the city limits.
II. All dirt to be removed in barrels and boxes from the back yards and alleys by the persons occupying the same. No rubbish will be allowed to remain more than twenty-four hours without being removed.
III. Offal, the accumulation of Restaurants, must be removed by the occupants each day (Sundays excepted) before 10 A. M. All ashes and rubbish will be set in barrels on the sidewalk before 10 A. M. each day.
IV. Hereafter occupants of Stores and Houses will be required to have the rear of their premises clean, and the side-walk swept before 9 A. M. each day.
V. Any violation of the above Order will be punished by a fine of Five Dollars ($5,) to be collected by the Provost Marshal.
VI. As cleanliness is one of the first requisites to health, it is hoped the citizens will do all in their power to assist in removing one of the first causes of disease. As soon as a sufficient number of carts can be procured, notice will be given, and the dirt and rubbish removed without cost to citizens.
VII. As it is my intention to remove all filth from the city proper, whether in the shape of dirt, rubbish, or dead animals, all information that would facilitate the above will be thankfully received and immediate action taken in the premises.
Wm. D. Chamberlain, Capt. and Chief of City Police
Nashville Dispatch, March 29, 1864.[2]
28, "Operations of the 'Forty Thieves;'" juvenile gang crime in Civil War Nashville
In the career of the juvenile gang of thieves from Louisville, now infesting our city, it was not an unfrequent occurrence for them to pick the pockets of the night police of that city while on their beats. We simply mention it in order to place our guardians of the night on the qui vive [sic], lest the "precious youths" should give some of our worthy policemen such an unenviable notoriety. If one of them ever gets into our work house, we may expect to hear of that institution being "extensively delivered," if not stolen completely, with all its inmates. An instance occurred once in the police court at Louisville in which one of the gang stole the stolen property which had been brought to the Court to convict another who was on trial. The venerable Judge was about to pass sentence on the "incorrigible little thief" before him, regardless of the "stolen evidence" of his crime, and as was his usual custom, took out his pocket handkerchief to wipe his spectacles before adjusting them on the nose of the Court, but judge of his amazement when he discovered that they had been stolen by the accomplice of the one on trial. This amazement than the Court could stand, and an adjournment was ordered immediately, in order to clear the room of thieves. One of them picked the pocket of a local editor on one occasion, while he suppose he was getting an item from the young rascal.
Nashville Dispatch, March 28, 1865
[1] This document indicates that some young West Tennesseans had no sympathy for the Confederacy and so refused to enlist. This contradicts a popularly held notion that all of Tennessee's young men eagerly flocked to the banner of the Confederacy without question.
[2] See also Nashville Dispatch, April 10, 1864, and Nashville Union, March 29, 1864.
James B. Jones, Jr.
Public Historian
Tennessee Historical Commission
2941 Lebanon Road
Nashville, TN 37214
(615)-532-1550 x115
(615)-532-1549 FAX
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