Following the American Civil War Sesquicentennial with day by day writings of the time, currently 1863.

Sunday, September 30, 2012

September 30.—Orders have come to send off all the men who can be moved, as we are expecting a large number from General Breckinridge’s command.

We had a visit this evening from a Kentuckian; his hopes are high about soon getting to his home, as the good news is confirmed about the success of Bragg’s army in Kentucky.

This evening a great many patients came in. They are the returned prisoners of Fort Donelson.

We are very nicely fixed now. A Kentucky friend made us a present of a carpet, with the proviso that we would keep it for our own comfort; also some nice articles of bedding. Mrs. Bryant, the owner of the house we are in, is living in it; the family is a very pleasant one. They have had their sorrows, in the loss of a little child, since we have been here. We buy our milk from Mrs. B. Their being here makes it pleasanter for us than it otherwise would be.

September 30.—A fight took place at Newtonia, Mo., between a force of Union troops under the command of Gen. Salomon, and a body of rebels under Col. Cooper, resulting in the retreat of the Nationals.—(Doc. 213.)

—Commodore Harwood, commanding Potomac flotilla, reported to the Navy Department that the rebel bomb-proof magazines at Lower Shipping Point, Va., had been destroyed, under the superintendence of Lieut. Commander Magaw. They were seven in number, and the work was found heavier than was anticipated. A small body of rebel cavalry made its appearance, but dispersed upon the discharge of a volley of musketry from the Nationals.

—A fight took place at Russellville, Ky., between a force of Union troops under the command of Colonel Harrison, Seventeenth Kentucky, and a body of about three hundred and fifty rebels, resulting in a rout of the latter with a loss of thirty-five of their number killed and ten taken prisoners. — Grayson, Ky., was this day entered and occupied by a force of rebel troops.

—The Twenty-fourth regiment of New-Jersey volunteers, nine months’ men, left Camp Cadwalladcr, at Beverly, this morning in steamers, via Philadelphia, for the seat of war.

—Colonel Barton, of the Forty-eighth New York, with the left wing of his regiment, and with the steamboats Planter and Starlight, having guns aboard, started by order of Major-General Mitchel, to destroy the extensive salt-works at Bluffton, S. C. After a slight delay, occasioned by the Planter’s going aground, he arrived, and his men, under Captain Strickland, landed and drove in the pickets. The boats then ascended the river, and, at sight of them, the rebels, having no batteries, fled, leaving the expedition to accomplish its purpose and return in safety.