September 24th. The weather has greatly improved and is now superb. Derrickson and I availed ourselves of it this morning, and started in for a great treat. We found in the barn attached to the house an old Rockaway carriage and set of double harness, and conceived the brilliant idea of taking a drive. After slight repairs made to the wagon by a battery blacksmith, we hitched up Derrickson’s sorrel and my gray, and to the envy of the whole command, started off. My horse had evidently not been used to harness, or had forgotten all about it in his long military career, and jumped and reared and danced, much to the amusement of the crowd. By a good deal of management we finally got started, and for half a mile or more sped over the ground in great style, when the gray made a sudden bolt, upset the wagon, and pitched us both out. The wagon was broken, so we had to lead the horses home and send our men to fetch the wagon. We concluded in the future to go on horseback, and leave wagons for civilians, countrymen and women.
My general court is in session every day; a hospital tent furnishes the accommodation, and from ten till two o’clock daily justice is dispensed without fear, favor, or prejudice.
Two cases of desertion have been tried since we have been here, one of them attracting much attention on account of the prisoner’s youth. Private Adam Smally, Company E, Sixty-sixth New York, deserted just before the battle of Gettysburg. After his capture he admited his guilt, but seemed to think nothing of it. My court tried him and found him guilty and sentenced him to death. He pleaded guilty, nevertheless I introduced evidence to prove conclusively his guilt, and subsequently, at my request, the general appointed a board of surgeons to consider his mental condition. I was disappointed when they declared him responsible, for he is so young it seems a pity to shoot him. I am sorry now I did not use my influence with the court to modify the sentence.
September 24.—General Robert E. Lee issued an order announcing to the rebel army in Virginia, “with profound gratitude to Almighty God, the victory achieved at Chickamauga by the army of Braxton Bragg,” and calling upon his soldiers to “emulate the heroic example of our brethren in the South, until the enemy shall be expelled from our borders, and peace and independence be secured.”—Between eight and nine o’clock this morning a squad of twenty-one guerrillas made a raid at Wood Station Number Thirteen, on the line of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, Va., about twelve miles from the latter place, stealing nine mules. Sergeant Highland, of Pennsylvania, who started in the direction of the plunderers, was taken prisoner.—President Lincoln issued a proclamation raising the blockade of the port of Alexandria, Va.—(Doc. 175.)
by John Beauchamp Jones
SEPTEMBER 24TH.—A dispatch from Gen Bragg, received today, three miles from Chattanooga, and dated yesterday, says the enemy occupies a strong position, and confronts him in great force, but he is sending troops round his flanks. No doubt he will cross the river as soon as possible. Only a small portion of Longstreet’s corps has been engaged, so Bragg will have a fresh force to hurl against the invader. We learn to-day that Gen. Hood is not dead, and will recover.
The President sent over to the Secretary of War to-day some extracts from a letter he has just received from Mobile, stating that a large trade is going on with the enemy at New Orleans. A number of vessels, laden with cotton, had sailed from PascagoulaBay, for that destination. Some one or two had been stopped by the people, as the traffic is expressly prohibited by an act of Congress. But upon inquiry it was ascertained that the trade was authorized by authority from Richmond—the War Department. I doubt whether Mr. Seddon authorized it. Who then? Perhaps it will be ascertained upon investigation.
Mr. Kean, the young Chief of the Bureau, is a most fastidious civil officer, for he rebukes older men than himself for mistaking an illegible K for an R, and puts his warning on record in pencil marks. Mr. K. came in with Mr. Randolph, but declined to follow his patron any further.
