Thursday, September 8, 2011

September 8 - Tennessee Civil War Notes

8, "City Fumigation;" the fight against malaria in Memphis
Strangers here are frequently heard to inquire the object of the offensive fumes of tar with which the might air of Memphis is impregnated. It is the fumigation by order of the authorities to counteract the malaria and the noxious effluvia arising from the many hospital and camps with which the city abounds. and although unpleasant to the senses, it is one of the best sanitary measures than can be levied. The dangers of night malaria cannot be exaggerated. Napoleon equally great in saving as in destroying life, always protected his troops against it. If compelled to encamp near a march, he kept large fires burning all night between the cams and the source of the malaria. In pitching camps ins such a situation the commanding officers should, if possible, locate it to windward, not to leeward.
Memphis Bulletin, September 8, 1863

 

"THE RIOT." – We yesterday received the following note in correction of an error in our report of the riot which took place in South Nashville on Sunday evening last. The mistake alluded to did not originate with us, of course. We gladly exonerate the two soldiers by publishing the communication:
CAMP on CHURCH STREET, Sept. 7th.
Mr. Editor: Allow me to correct a statement that appeared in this morning's Press, in connection with the fire in this vicinity yesterday. Messrs. Harris, Post and Gregory, of the Third Ohio Cavalry, who were arrested o­n suspicion of being the incendiaries, did not go near the buildings in question until they attracted a crowd, as they are abundantly able to prove.
On the representation of this fact by Lieut. Garfield, the officer in command, they were released this morning. They have just come from the front for the purpose of getting horses, and it seemed that they should fall victims to the zeal of the soldiers who serve their country by fifty or a hundred miles from the rebels. Hoping you will do them the justice to publish this, I remain yours,
J. Linselsy
Nashville Daily Press, September 8, 1863.

 

8, Report on Forts Negley and Morton in Nashville.
NASHVILLE, September 8, [1863]-7 p. m.
I have spent the afternoon in examining the fortifications for the defense of this place. The principal works are three in number, all on the southern side of the town. One of these, the easternmost, named Fort Negley, is finished, or nearly so, and armed. It is a work of very intricate design, and requires about a thousand men for its garrison. The central work, known as Fort Morton, is scarcely yet commenced. Simpler in design and more powerful when done than Negley. It is situated on a hill of hard limestone, and the very extensive excavations required must all be done by blasting. At the present rate of progress it will take two years to finish it. A part of it, namely, the demilune is its front, is partly done, so far in fact that its parapet might be used as a rifle-pit and might afford some protection to field guns. This work will require a garrison of from 1,500 to 2,000 men. The two redoubts and barracks connecting them, of which its main body consists, will be altogether 700 feet long. The third and westernmost fort is precisely the same in plan as Morton, but is on land that can be easily dug. This fort is about one-quarter done, and can be completed with comparative rapidity and cheapness. The cost of Morton must be heavy.
Nothing new from the front. Judicious men here think there will be no battle, and that Bragg has only the shadow of a force at Chattanooga to delay Rosecrans' advance.
[C. A. DANA.]
[Hon. E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War.]
OR, Ser. I, Vol. 30, pt. I, pp. 183-184.

 

 

8, Lady Godiva's Nashville carriage-ride
"Disgusting Sight"
On Thursday [8th] afternoon last, at about six o'clock,, the good citizens of Cherry street, from Cedar to Broad, as well, doubtless, many others, were treated to a sight so loathsome, abominable and insufferably disgusting, that it would be allowed no mention in our columns, were it not to call forth the effective arm of our corporation law and authorities to prevent the repetition of a similar occurrence. A fleshy, (truth will not permit us to say fair) fille de joie, whose sense of modesty seemed wholly to have been merged in the large development of her physical charms, entirely nude from her waist heavenward, in an open hack, drove rapidly up Cherry street. She was attired in a deep red dress, a jaunty hat trimmed with red, and reminded us of (we intended to quote Shakespeare* about Patience sitting on a monument, but "in order to suit the times: we will say) she reminded us of a conflict of arms in the ocean of blood. As she passed the Maxwell Barracks, the hundreds of soldiers both in and near it, set up a lusty and continuous shout of admiration and she was carried past the Post Office building on an enthusiasm so wild and hearty that it can, as the novelists say, "better be imagined than described." We have somewhere seen the expression "there is a pleasure in being mad, which hone but madmen feel." There may be a pleasure to these frail daughters of humanity in thus airing in the grateful evening air, but it is a pleasure we would fain believed shared in by none other than themselves. Against such indecency we enter the grave and indignant protest of ourselves, and in the name of our good citizens, and for the sake of our pure women, we earnestly hope our city authorities will promptly and rigidly see that this disgraceful and degrading spectacle shall never again stain the fair name of our good city, we thing that the women who thus exposes to, and pollutes the public view with her disgusting nudeness, should be fined and punished to the full extent of the law.- We think the hack driver who engages in such a business, would have his licensee taken from him, his horses and carriage confiscated, himself fined to the fullest extent, and, as a just finale to the whole affair, be sent to work for ninety days.
Nashville Daily Press, September 10, 1864.
*(Methinks he doth protest too much. -ed.)

 

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