Friday, 30th—Everything is quiet today. It came my turn to go on duty. Another gunboat came down the river today. General McArthur moved his headquarters from the boat, lying here in the river, out into a plantation house nearby. Things are very expensive here; butter is fifty cents a pound and cheese is forty cents.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
JANUARY 30TH.—There is a rumor that Kentucky has voted to raise an army of 60,000 men to resist the execution of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
Fort Caswell, below Wilmington, has been casemated with iron; but can it withstand elongated balls weighing 480 pounds? I fear not. There are, however, submarine batteries; yet these may be avoided, for Gen. Whiting writes that the best pilot (one sent thither some time ago by the enemy) escaped to the hostile fleet since Gen. Smith visited North Carolina, which is embraced within his command. This pilot, no doubt, knows the location of all our torpedoes.
Nothing further from Savannah.
Mr. Adams, the United States Minister at London, writes to Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, dated 17th of October, 1862, that if the Federal army shall not achieve decisive successes by the month of February ensuing, it is probable the British Parliament will recognize the Confederate States. To-morrow is the last day of January.
I cut the following from yesterday’s Dispatch:
“The Results of Extortion and Speculation.—The state of affairs brought about by the speculating and extortion practiced upon the public cannot be better illustrated than by the following grocery bill for one week for a small family, in which the prices before the war and those of the present are compared:
1860
Bacon, 10 lbs. at 12½c……………. $ 1 25
Flour, 30 lbs. at 5c …………………. .. 1 50 [click to continue…]
Buntyn Station, Friday, Jan. 30. 4th Brigade of this Division passed toward Memphis. Harnessed up in the afternoon in order to see if the harnesses were in marching order. Indication of rain.
January 30.—The United States gunboat, Isaac Smith, under the command of Acting Lieutenant Conover, while reconnoitring in the Stono River, S. C, was fired into by three masked batteries of rifled guns, and, the vessel getting aground, was captured.—(Doc. 114.)
—A Party of National troops under the command of Colonel Wood, Twenty-second Ohio volunteers, left Trenton, Tenn., and proceeded to Dyersburg, where they broke up a camp of rebel guerrillas, under the leadership of Captain Dawson. Thirty-four of Dawson’s men were killed or captured, but he himself escaped.
—Yesterday one hundred conscript rebel soldiers went into Murfreesboro, Tenn., and voluntarily surrendered themselves, declaring their attachment to the Union, requesting the privilege of taking the oath of allegiance, and to-day two hundred more followed their example.
—The schooner Hanover of Provincetown, Massachusetts, was captured off the south side of San Domingo by the rebel schooner Retribution.—Boston Traveller.
—A fight took place at a point nine miles from Suffolk, Ya.,.known as the “Deserted House,” between a force of Union troops under General Corcoran, and a body of rebels under the command of General Roger A. Pryor, resulting, after a desperate struggle of three hours’ duration, in the retreat of the rebels. The loss in this affair was about equal on both sides.—(Doc. 115.)
