4, LaGrange occupied by Federal forces
LAGRANGE, TENN., November 4, 1862.-8 p. m.
Troops from Corinth and Bolivar reached here to-day. Occupy the line of Scott Creek and Wolf River from 2½ miles south of Grand Junction to a short distance west of LaGrange; Gen. McPherson commanding right wing, Gen. Hamilton the left. Will remain here for a few days to get up stores by railroad and to reconnoiter the front perfectly. Enemy's pickets occupied this place on our arrival, and two captured bridges over Wolf River at this place are safe. Gen. Sherman moves out from Memphis to attract attention in that direction. My moving force will be about 31,000.
U. S. GRANT,
OR, Ser. I, Vol. 17, pt. I, p. 467.
4, "SELLING COTTON TO THE ENEMY."
Various reasons are given by those who sell cotton to the Yankees, which we propose to notice; one is that we can get gold for it, and with that buy clothing, salt, and other necessary articles. In answer to this, it may be said that the cotton cannot be sold unless it is carried within the enemy's lines, and then they will not permit clothing, salt, or any necessaries to be brought within the Confederate lines, and, consequently the sale of the cotton can do the Confederates no good. If the Yankees would permit us to exchange cotton for arms, ammunition, clothing, salt and the necessary articles, even then it would be doubtful whether we would not be doing them more good by buying such articles from them than we would be benefited. We had better learn to rely upon ourselves even it if does cost some hardship, than to furnish the Yankees with cotton. We can make our own clothing, rough though it be. We can make our own guns with the exception of what we can buy from foreign countries. But it is useless to argue this, because the Yankees will not permit those who sell them their cotton, to bring supplies to our army. In fact, we believe those who sell cotton to the enemy have shown very little disposition to furnish our army with supplies. Their object is their own individual gain, and not the good of the country. We cannot expect to have a war of this magnitude without suffering great hardships. We ought not to think of having all the conveniences and even luxuries of peace in time of war. Coarse clothing and coarse food are far preferable to trading with the Yankees Another excuse sometimes given is, that a man does not wish to lose his cotton, it would be too hard on him Neither does a man wish to lose his life, and yet there are men losing their lives, and you who sell the enemy cotton are enabling them to take the lives of the very men who are fighting to protect your families and your property. To those who say we can get gold for it, we reply, so did Judas Iscariot get thirty pieces of silver for selling his Savioiur [sic]. Another man says, I did not sell to the Yankees, I sold to Southern men. Did you not sell to men who were buying for the Yankees or to sell to them? If so, it is the same as if you had sold to the Yankees yourself; you had as well as sell directly as indirectly. The principle is the same. The Yankees had at the first of this month, according to their own reports, only 25,000 bales of cotton on hand. They were expecting to get 5,000 bales per week from the South. Now, if no cotton had been sold them from Tennessee, North Alabama, and the Mississippi river, they would ere this have been entirely out of cotton, and all their mills would have been stopped. Even now they are getting as they estimate 5000 bales per week from the South. Were all their cotton mills closed it would produce a financial crisis at the North which would do much to stop this war. Even as it is, cotton is at sixty cents a pound, and gold over thirty per cent. Premium. The men who furnish the enemy with cotton during the past Spring and Summer are responsible in a great degree, for the continuance of this war. Our Congress has passed a law making the selling of cotton to the enemy a felony. This shows the estimation placed upon it by out Congress. If a man were to furnish the enemy with guns and ammunition, or become a recruiting officer for them, he would not be so much an enemy of the South as if he were to supply them with cotton, because if they are furnished with cotton they can get men, and can obtain ample supplies of all the munitions of war. Had all our people refused to let them have any cotton, we would now have seen a different state of things, but the cotton which they have obtained from the Confederate States has kept their looms in motion, and enabled them to prosecute this war. What has been done cannot be avoided, but we mean in the future to guard against these things, it is useless for some men to be shedding their blood, sacrificing their property, and enduring hardships while others are furnishing the enemy with the means of carrying on the war. We hope the Press of the Confederate States will call attention to this subject, for it is one of the highest importance.
Chattanooga Daily Rebel, November 4, 1862
4, U. S. Grant orders use of pre-fabricated bridges for military railroads in Tennessee
CHATTANOOGA, November 4, 1863.
J. B. ANDERSON, Manager Military Railroads, Nashville, Tennessee:
Your idea of having bridges framed and brought here ready to put up is approved. There are now six bridges at Louisville belonging to Government, ready made, that can be brought forward. Make contracts with parties who will do this work in the shortest order. Mr. Boomer, who is now at Whiteside's, proposes to do this work. You will contract with whom you please, however.
I have ordered three locomotives and all the cars but ten from the southern road--Vicksburg. Possibly if you send a man to superintend loading them on boats they will get through quicker. The road from Nashville to Decatur will have to be put in running order.
U. S. GRANT, Maj.-Gen.
OR, Ser. I, Vol. 31, pt. III, pp. 38-39.
4, Establishment of U. S. C. T. recruiting stations and regulations for compensation in Middle Tennessee and Northern Alabama
Headquarters Commission for the Organization of U. S. Colored Troops, Nashville, Tenn.; Nov. 4, 1863.
Circular No. 1. [sic]
In accordance with Orders from the President of the United States, the following recruiting stations have been established for Colored Troops in the Department of the Cumberland:
Nashville, Tennessee
Murfreesboro, "
Gallatin, '
Wartrace, "
Clarksville, "
Shelbyville, "
Columbia, "
Stevenson, Alabama
All claims by alleged owners of slaves who may be enlisted, will be laid before the Board appointed by the President and consisting of ________, __________, __________. [sic]
The Board will hold its sessions at Nashville, Tenn. Rolls and recruiting lists will be furnished the Board for public information, and on demand exhibited to any person claiming that his or her slave has been enlisted.
Claims must be presented within ten days after the filing of the said rolls.
No claims will be received or entertained from any person who is or has been engaged in rebellion against the Government of the United States, or who in any way has given aid, or shall give aid or comfort to the enemies of the Government, and all claimants shall file with their claims an oath of allegiance to the Government of the United States.
The mustering officer will furnish official copies of all muster-in rolls, for the information and guidance of the above Board.
Any citizen of Tennessee who shall offer his or her slave for enlistment into the military service, shall, if such slave be accepted, receive from the recruiting officer a certificate thereof, with a descriptive list of such slave, and become entitled to compensation for the service or labor of such slave, not exceeding the sum of three hundred dollars, upon filing with the above Board a valid deed of manumission and release, and making satisfactory proof forever thereafter free.
All enlistments will be made in accordance with the provisions of General Order No. 329, current series War Department.
By order of the Secretary of War
Nashville Dispatch, November 19, 1863.
4, Communications from Pillow to Sherman relative to permission to cross enemy lines
HDQRS. JACKSON'S [CS] CAVALRY DIVISION, Near Courtland, Ala., November 4, 1864.
Maj. Gen. W. T. SHERMAN, Cmdg. U. S. Forces in the Field:
GEN.: I have the honor herewith to inclose a communication of Gen. Pillow, and to request your favorable consideration of the same. Being actuated by honest and natural motives to remove his large and dependent family south, I feel that you will extend to him the courtesies which he asks. If granted, will you permit his aide-de-camp and son, Lieut. George M. Pillow, and his nephew, Lieut. Lem. Long, to accompany and assist him? I have also to request permission for Dr. W. M. Gentry, a surgeon in our army, to accompany the party to remove his family from Bedford County, Tenn., to our lines. May I ask your early attention and reply to this? I will offer my assurances, if the permission is granted, that these gentlemen will pledge themselves to silence.
I have the honor, general, to be, your obedient servant,
W. H. JACKSON, Brig.-Gen.
[Inclosure.]
TUSCUMBIA, ALA., November 2, 1864.
Maj.-Gen. SHERMAN:
SIR: I have received information that my residence and the home of my family, near Columbia, has been sold, or is to be sold in a short time, by decree of confiscation, and that my family are to be turned out of becomes a necessity, and I send this communication to get your permission for their removal and your safeguard for such carriages and horses or mules and wagons as may be necessary to bring out such personal baggage as they may be allowed to remove. All my large estate having been confiscated by authority of your Government, and my family thus reduced to poverty, they are left without the means of getting out. My family consists of a wife and six daughters (nearly all unwed ladies) and a little son nearly eleven years old. Under such circumstances, I will accept it as a personal courtesy, amenitory [sic] of the harshness of this war, if you would permit me to go in person to my residence to make the necessary arrangements for their removal, and to carry with me, under your safeguard, such means of transportation as I may be able to command here and such carriages as I may be able to procure from my friends there. I also respectfully ask that you will allow such servants of my family as may choose voluntarily to come with them to do so, that having been allowed to the citizens of Atlanta. If the application is not allowed in the form presented, you will confer a favor on me to allow a personal interview with yourself, designating time and place. If allowed myself to enter your lines, I would do so under such injunctions of silence as you may think proper to impose. I addressed a similar communication some weeks ago to Maj.-Gen. Rousseau, through Brig.-Gen. Roddey, but have received no answer. A small guard of Confederates or Federals, but have received no answer. A family, which you will also please allow, to protect them from bushwhackers and robbers.
Very respectfully,
GIDEON J. PILLOW, Brig.-Gen., C. S. Army.[1]
OR, Ser. I, Vol. 39, pt. III, pp. 640-641.
4, Newspaper report on Political Violence and Intimidation in Nashville –the Removal of the McClellan Ticket and Suppression of the "Independent Movement." Excerpts from a Letter of Protest to President Abraham Lincoln
~ ~ ~
….[In the early days of the secession movement] [t]hose opposed in the "independent movement" were denounced as traitors, and so they are now. Troops from our own and from other States were used to overawe the public, and so they are now. We had vigilance and mob violence then. We have now secret leagues, and are liable at any time to arbitrary arrest, as well as to mob violence which is now used in our midst.
These are the general facts in support of which we add the following speculations.
We have held a number of peaceable and loyal public meetings in this city, more than one of us has been "menaced" by your partisans. On the 21st ult., such a meeting was held at the court-house in this city. It was held "peacefully and conducted "loyally," the assembly consisting of the "friends of George B. McClellan." A number of provost guards were present, by request of those who conducted the meeting, to preserve order. The meeting had been addressed by a gentleman who is an exile from this home because of his loyalty, and who has spent much time in the military service of the government during the war. One of the undersigned, a McClellan elector (Hon. Ballie Peyton), had taken the stand to address the meeting when the hall was suddenly entered by a large party of soldiers, and the meeting violently broken up. These men rushed in with guns and drawn pistols, crying "Disperse, you d____d rebels, and traitors," extinguishing the lights, and driving the people from the hall.
We specify further, that, on the 21st inst. last, the rioters, thirty in number, published a card in the Nashville Times, the organ in this city of Governor Johnson, to which they append their names, as "all members of company D, 1st Tennessee light artillery." This company was raised and its officers appointed (as we understand) under the superintendence of Governor Johnson. The rioters speak thus in their card; "Neither Governor Johnson or any other individuals outside of the men who were active participants knew anything of our intentions until the affair was over. Some of colored men have followed us, but we know nothing of them" "We do not fear a court-martial," they defiantly add, "and therefore cheerfully give our names as loyal and Union loving soldiers."
We specify, further that on the evening of the 24th instant, only three days since the McClellan meeting was broken up, our streets were paraded by an immense procession of negroes, bearing torches and transparencies, with such inscriptions as the latter as "Lincoln and Johnson"-"Liberty or Death," Some disorders occurred in connection with this demonstration, and shots were freely fired by the negroes-some at a window where white person were standing, and some at persons on the streets. One of the latter (an employee of the government) was dangerously if not mortal wounded, and it was thought others were hit. In the course of these orgies the procession waited on Governor Andrew Johnson, at the capitol, and he delivered to the negro assembly an address. A report of his speech was published and republished in his organ, the "Times," and from that report we take the following extract. Governor Johnson says "I speak to-night as a citizen of Tennessee. I am here on my own soil, and mean to remain here, and fight this great battle of freedom, through to the end. Loyal men from this day forward are to be controllers of Tennessee ground and airline destiny and rebels must be DUMB [?]. We will not listen to their counsels, Nashville is no longer the place for them to hold their meetings. let them gather their treasonable conclaves elsewhere,; among their friends in the confederacy. They shall not hold their conspiracies in Nashville.
The language of the rioters, "Disperse rebels and traitors" and such terms of terror and abuse to the friends of Gen. McClellan here do not admit of our ignoring the meaning of Gov. Johnson in the language quoted. The allusion is evidently in the riotous dispersion of our meeting three evening previous. He also seems to adopt your ideas, that, as a citizen of Tennessee, he "has the right to favor any political plan he chooses." And he unmistakably evinces his determination to "manage" his "side of the contest in his own way."
~ ~ ~
After consultation with our friends…in different parts of the state.…we respectfully announce…that the McClellan Electoral Ticket in Tennessee is withdrawn.
W. D. Campbell of Wilson co.
Ballie Peyton, of Sumner co.
John Lellyett, of Davison co.
Nashville, October 29, 1861.
The Louisville Daily Journal, November 4, 1864. [2]
[1] It is not known if Sherman, who was very busy at the time, answered. If he did respond no doubt he informed Pillow that such protection was given only to those loyal to the United, not Confederate, States
[2] TSL&A, 19th CN.
James B. Jones, Jr.
Public Historian
Tennessee Historical Commission
2941 Lebanon Road
Nashville, TN 37214
(615)-770-1090 ext. 123456
(615)-532-1549 FAX
No comments:
Post a Comment