Monday, December 2, 2013

12/02/2013 Tennessee Civil War Notes

2, John R. Branner, President of the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad, protests the Confederate military's disruption of his railroad's schedule

MORRISTOWN, December 2, 1861.

J. P. BENJAMIN, Secretary of War:

I must inform you that in several instances the military authorities who are in command of troops and volunteers along the line of our road have taken possession of our road and trains and forced our engines and cars out of the face of regular schedules. This I will not submit to. I have been doing all any man can do to promote the interests of the Government and favor the speedy transportation of troops and army stores along our line.

If this course is persisted in by the military authorities any more, I shall on my part stop all of our engines and cars immediately, and then if the Government wishes to take possession of our road and control it, I shall not object in any way whatever. I think it is my duty to inform you of the facts. If we are permitted to manage and control our road, I think I can do so better than any other parties. Please answer.

JOHN R. BRANNER, President East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad.

OR, Ser. I, Vol. 7, p. 733.

 

 

2, C.S.A. Conscription notice for Johnson County

JOHNSON COUNTY.

Conscripts Attention.

Knoxville, Tenn.-December 2, 1862

All white persons between the ages of 18 and 40 years subject to conscription will be assembled by the enrolling officers at Taylorsville on the 11th of December 1862.

Blank certificates of exemption will be furnished to enrolling officers, to be issued on that day to those entitled to them.

E. D. Blake, Lt. Col. C. S. A., Commandant of Conscripts

Knoxville Daily Register, December 14, 1862.

 

 

        2, Resistance to Confederate Conscription in Middle Tennessee reported

~~~~

Nashville, Tenn., Dec. 2.-There is much excitement in Middle Tennessee about the enforcement of the rebel conscription act. A regular organization has been formed in Lincoln county to resist the conscription, and the people there fired upon the rebel cavalry while they were attempting to enforce it. Rebel foragers are seizing the winter meat of private families.

~~~~

Boston Daily Advertiser, December 3, 1862.[1]

 

 

        2, Northern newspaper accounts about Brigadier Orlando B. Wilcox's army, rumors, refugees, East Tennesseans entering the U. S. Army and Parson Brownlow

Department of the Ohio

Operations of General Wilcox's Army-Rumors and Refugees-East Tennesseeans entering the Army-Parson Brownlow and His Doings.

Cumberland Gap, Nov. 26, 1863.-The wires between this and some point south of Morristown have been unusually animated for several days past; but the intelligence they bring is contraband. A knowing shake of the head is all one's eager inquiries elicit at the telegraph office. I had, however, seen and heard enough during the past week, independent of official channels, to convey the reverse of hopeful impressions. That East Tennessee is lost, was a proposition that all seemed to concur in. Long lines of frightened refugees facing north, by every means of locomotion, each voluble with doleful takes, have blocked up our narrow mountain roads for the past week, severely testing the amiability of impatient army teamsters. Every conceivable disaster was credited to Burnside and his small army of tried heroes.

He was overwhelmed, repulsed across the river; the streets of Knoxville were crimson with the blood of his decimated troops; annihilating or surrender were the two horns the dilemma presented. So ran the sad story--The simultaneous falling back to the Gap of General Wilcox, with the left wing of the Tennessee Army, seemed to confirm the rueful tidings that heralded his approach. Last night, however, Madam Rumor grew more complacent. Burnside had mowed down three distinct Rebel assaults upon his works on College Hill (the western suburb of Knoxville). The latter were impregnable; reinforcements from Grant had begun to arrive; an order of assurance to the stampeding loyalists of Knoxville had been issued; in short, tidings weren't so bad as they were. The gloomy tidings, however, have the prestige of precedence, and there are not a few who persistently refuse to be reassured.

Among the pressing throng of stampeders, I notice quite a number of familiar faces that I had noted in the procession of returning fugitives that followed the wake of our forces in August and September. They have thus barely recollected the scattered embers of the domestic altar to be aroused to the realization that they are again fugitives from the endearing association of home. Among this number is the veritable and pungent, "Parson," who abruptly left off work upon the inside of the third number of the Ventilator. He is now sojourning in the neighboring town of Barboursville, Ky., awaiting further developments.

A marked advantage consequent upon the present Rebel invasion is the reanimation and practicalization [sic] of the proverbial Union feeling of East Tennessee. Every step of the Rebel advance has been to sow dragon teeth, from which has sprung hosts of staunch loyalists who, if not all armed, speedily will be. Eleven hundred of such passed in a body through the Gap last evening, en route, for Camp Nelson, to be organized and equipped. They had previously been sworn in. The exodus that has swept through this and the gaps below, during the past week, will promptly furnish material for still another regiment.

Since the date of the Rebel invasion we have been constantly on the qui vive tor an attack here. Col. Lemmert, the wide-awake and skillful commander of the forces here has had his preparations completed for the successful repulsion of any attempts upon this place.

Philadelphia Inquirer, December 2, 1863.

 

 

 

2, C.S.A. Conscription notice for Johnson County

JOHNSON COUNTY.

Conscripts Attention.

Knoxville, Tenn.-December 2, 1862

All white persons between the ages of 18 and 40 years subject to conscription will be assembled by the enrolling officers at Taylorsville on the 11th of December 1862.

Blank certificates of exemption will be furnished to enrolling officers, to be issued on that day to those entitled to them.

E. D. Blake, Lt. Col. C. S. A., Commandant of Conscripts

Knoxville Daily Register, December 14, 1862.

 

 

2, Resistance to Confederate Conscription in Middle Tennessee reported

~~~~

Nashville, Tenn., Dec. 2.-There is much excitement in Middle Tennessee about the enforcement of the rebel conscription act. A regular organization has been formed in Lincoln county to resist the conscription, and the people there fired upon the rebel cavalry while they were attempting to enforce it. Rebel foragers are seizing the winter meat of private families.

~~~~

Boston Daily Advertiser, December 3, 1862.[2]

 

 

2, Northern newspaper accounts about Brigadier Orlando B. Wilcox's army, rumors, refugees, East Tennesseans entering the U. S. Army and Parson Brownlow

Department of the Ohio

Operations of General Wilcox's Army-Rumors and Refugees-East Tennesseeans entering the Army-Parson Brownlow and His Doings.

Cumberland Gap, Nov. 26, 1863.-The wires between this and some point south of Morristown have been unusually animated for several days past; but the intelligence they bring is contraband. A knowing shake of the head is all one's eager inquiries elicit at the telegraph office. I had, however, seen and heard enough during the past week, independent of official channels, to convey the reverse of hopeful impressions. That East Tennessee is lost, was a proposition that all seemed to concur in. Long lines of frightened refugees facing north, by every means of locomotion, each voluble with doleful takes, have blocked up our narrow mountain roads for the past week, severely testing the amiability of impatient army teamsters. Every conceivable disaster was credited to Burnside and his small army of tried heroes.

He was overwhelmed, repulsed across the river; the streets of Knoxville were crimson with the blood of his decimated troops; annihilating or surrender were the two horns the dilemma presented. So ran the sad story--The simultaneous falling back to the Gap of General Wilcox, with the left wing of the Tennessee Army, seemed to confirm the rueful tidings that heralded his approach. Last night, however, Madam Rumor grew more complacent. Burnside had mowed down three distinct Rebel assaults upon his works on College Hill (the western suburb of Knoxville). The latter were impregnable; reinforcements from Grant had begun to arrive; an order of assurance to the stampeding loyalists of Knoxville had been issued; in short, tidings weren't so bad as they were. The gloomy tidings, however, have the prestige of precedence, and there are not a few who persistently refuse to be reassured.

Among the pressing throng of stampeders, I notice quite a number of familiar faces that I had noted in the procession of returning fugitives that followed the wake of our forces in August and September. They have thus barely recollected the scattered embers of the domestic altar to be aroused to the realization that they are again fugitives from the endearing association of home. Among this number is the veritable and pungent, "Parson," who abruptly left off work upon the inside of the third number of the Ventilator. He is now sojourning in the neighboring town of Barboursville, Ky., awaiting further developments.

A marked advantage consequent upon the present Rebel invasion is the reanimation and practicalization [sic] of the proverbial Union feeling of East Tennessee. Every step of the Rebel advance has been to sow dragon teeth, from which has sprung hosts of staunch loyalists who, if not all armed, speedily will be. Eleven hundred of such passed in a body through the Gap last evening, en route, for Camp Nelson, to be organized and equipped. They had previously been sworn in. The exodus that has swept through this and the gaps below, during the past week, will promptly furnish material for still another regiment.

Since the date of the Rebel invasion we have been constantly on the qui vive tor an attack here. Col. Lemmert, the wide-awake and skillful commander of the forces here has had his preparations completed for the successful repulsion of any attempts upon this place.

Philadelphia Inquirer, December 2, 1863.

 

 

      

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