April 2013

April 2.—At Richmond, Va., a riot occurred in which a large number of women were engaged. They broke open the rebel government stores, and took bread, clothing, and such other materials as they desired, when the militia were ordered out to suppress their proceedings.— (Doc. 163.)

—Eight regiments of General Crufts’s and Hazen’s brigades, of General Palmer’s division, made an effort to capture a rebel brigade stationed at Woodbury, Tenn. Last night at ten o’clock the party, accompanied by a body of Ohio cavalry, left Murfreesboro. General Hazen made a detour of fifteen miles, expecting to begin the attack at daylight this morning. Crufts’s brigade went direct. During the night the rebel pickets extended their lines, so that the advance began skirmishing before General Hazen had posted his troops, and in consequence the rebels escaped, the National cavalry keeping up a running fight for three miles, and capturing thirty of the rebels, besides killing and wounding twelve of their number. Corporal Jacob R. Shaveles, of company E, Third Ohio, was the only one wounded on the National side. “He acted very gallantly, charging a squad of rebels single-handed, and sabreing half a dozen before being shot.”—Cincinnati Gazette.

—At daylight this morning, Admiral Farragut, with the National squadron, left Grand Gulf, Miss., and proceeded to the mouth of Red River, destroying on the way a large number of rebel skiffs and flatboats. He arrived at the Red River at sundown.—Secretary Gabandau’s Report.

—Major W. C. Ransom, of the Sixth Kansas cavalry, destroyed the band of rebel guerrillas under Colonel Hicks, in Jackson County, Mo., killing seventeen and hanging two who were engaged in the robbery of the steamer Sam Gaty. He also recovered a portion of the contrabands captured from that steamer, besides taking twenty-one of the guerrillas’ horses, and their camps, with all their equipage, ammunition, etc.—General Curtis’s Despatch.

—As the National gunboat St. Clair was passing Palmyra, twenty-four miles above Fort Donelson, on the Cumberland River, she was fired into by a section of King’s rebel Missouri battery, belonging to the army under General Van Dorn. The third shot struck the supply-pipe of the steamer, rendering her unmanageable, and wounding two of her crew. She was taken in tow by the steamer Luminous, and carried to Cairo, Ill.—General Wright, in command of the National forces in California, issued a proclamation which concluded as follows: “Although the great mass of people on the Pacific coast are eminently patriotic and devoted to the Union, yet, fellow-citizens, we must not disguise the fact that we have traitors in our midst, who are doing all in their power to involve this country in the horrors of civil war; to such persons, I say, pause and reflect well before plunging into the yawning abyss of treason. An indignant people will rise in their majesty, and swift retributive justice will be their certain doom.”

—General Stanley, with two thousand cavalry, and an infantry brigade under Colonel Mathews, left Murfreesboro, on an expedition to capture Morgan’s and Wharton’s rebel regiments of infantry and cavalry at Snow Hill, Tenn. Beyond Auburn they drove in the rebel pickets, the Seventh Pennsylvania cavalry turning the rebel right while Minty’s cavalry, with a battery under Captain Newell, moved up in front. The rebels fled, but were again encountered at Smith’s Ford and on Dry Fork, from both of which places they were driven with some loss. Finally they formed a third line on Snow Hill, when the Second and Fourth Ohio cavalry sent to their rear, succeeded in breaking their line and putting them to flight, with a loss of fifty killed and wounded, and sixty taken prisoners. The Union loss was one private of the Seventh Pennsylvania cavalry killed, and two slightly wounded. Three hundred horses were captured by General Stanley, and carried into Murfreesboro.—General Rosecrans’s Despatch.