The American Civil War

November 28.—A cavalry fight took place at Louisville, Tenn., between a party of rebels and two hundred and twenty-five men belonging to the Sixth Illinois regiment, resulting in the rout of the rebels.

November 27.—A delegation of Cherokees, headed by Captain Smith Christy, acting Chief, and including Thomas Pegg, a leading Indian, and William P. Ross, with Rev. J. B. Jones as interpreter, went in state to pay their respects to General McNeil, the district commander at Fort Smith, Ark., by order of an act of their National Council. The act recited the sufferings, and asked additional protection to the nation and authority to raise an Indian cavalry regiment After the presentation of their credentials, Chief Christy arose and said that their national council had instructed them to call and pay their respects to the Commanding General, express their confidence in his ability and bravery, and to state the condition and wants of their suffering people. He then recapitulated the contents of the documents they were preparing to present. The greatest annoyance was from roving banditti, who desolated their homes and murdered their people. Their lives and those of their families were not safe away from the military fort. They desired stringent measures to change this state of things. They wished carried into successful practice a plan of Colonel Phillips, to form districts allotted for settlement, which should be adequately protected in order that the families camped in the vicinity of Fort Gibson might remove to more comfortable homes. From their present condition of suffering and disease, they thought the patriotic acts and sacrifices of their nation had not been sufficiently appreciated.

General McNeil replied that it gave him very great pleasure to receive this token of respect of the Cherokee nation. Among the responsibilities of the command to which he had been assigned, there was none greater than his duty toward their suffering people. One of his first acts on assuming command was to represent the condition of the Indian tribes, and he had recommended some measures for the improvement of their condition. The Government is very desirous that you should make a crop this spring, and such a disposition of troops will be made that you can do it in safety.

Mr. Ross.—If white troops will keep away our white enemies, the loyal Indian troops can protect themselves.

General McNeil.—I ask if I may assure the Government that the Cherokees will not make civil war on their tribes except in self-defence.

Chief Christy.—You may.

—The rebel schooner Maria Alberta, while attempting to run the blockade, was captured off Bayport, Florida, by the National schooner Two Sisters.—The battle of Mine Run, Va,, was fought this day, between the Union forces, under Major-General Meade, and the rebels, under the command of General Lee.—(Doc. 15.)

— A party of surgeons belonging to the United States army, lately prisoners in Richmond, made the following statement: “We the undersigned consider it our duty to publish a few facts that came to our knowledge while we were inmates of the hospital attached to the Libby prison. We enjoyed for several months daily access to the hospitals where the sick and wounded among our Union soldiers were under treatment. As a resalt of our observation, we hereby declare our belief that, since the battle of Chickamauga, the number of deaths per diem has averaged fully fifty. The prevailing diseases are diarrhœa, dysentery, or typhoid pneumonia. Of late the percentage of deaths has greatly increased from causes that have been long at work, as insufficient food, clothing, and shelter, combined with that depression of spirits brought so often by long confinement. It may seem almost incredible that, in the three hospitals for wounded soldiers, the average mortality is nearly forty per day, and, we are forced to believe, the deaths in the tobacco factories and upon the Island, will raise the total mortality among all the Union soldiers to fifty per day, or fifteen hundred monthly.

“The extremely reduced condition of those brought from the island argues that hundreds quite sick are left behind who, with us, would be considered fit subjects for hospital treatment. Such, too, is the fact, as invariably stated by scores we have conversed with from that camp. The same, to a degree, holds true of their prisoners in the city. It would be a reasonable estimate to put the number who are fit subjects for hospitals, but who are refused admittance, at five hundred. One thousand are already under treatment in the three hospitals; and the confederate surgeons themselves say the number of patients is only limited by the small accommodations provided. Thus we have over ten per cent of the whole number of the prisoners held classed as sick men, who need the most assiduous and skilful attention; yet, in the matter of rations, they are receiving nothing but corn-bread and sweet potatoes. Meat is no longer furnished to any class of our prisoners, except to the few officers in Libby Hospital; and all the sick and well officers and privates are now furnished with a very poor article of corn-bread, in place of wheat-bread—an unsuitable diet for hospital patients, prostrated with diarrhœa, dysentery, and fever.

“To say nothing of many startling instances of individual suffering, and horrid pictures of death from prostrated sickness and semi-starvation, we have had thrust upon our attention, the first demand of the poor creatures from the island was always for something to eat. Self-respect gone, half-clad and covered with vermin and filth, many of them are often beyond all reach of medical skill. In one instance, the ambulances brought sixteen to the hospital, and during the night seven of them died. Again, eighteen were brought, and eleven of them died in twenty-four hours. At another time, fourteen were admitted in a single day, and ten of them died. Judging from what we have ourselves seen and do know, we do not hesitate to say that under a treatment of systematized abuse, neglect, and semi-starvation, the number who are becoming prematurely broken down in their constitutions must be reckoned by thousands. The confederate daily papers in general terms acknowledge the truth of all we have affirmed, but usually close their abusive editorials by declaring that even such treatment is better than the invading Yankees deserve.

“The Examiner, in a recent article, begrudged the little food the prisoners did receive, and the boxes sent to us from home, and closed by eulogizing the system of semi-starvation and exposure as well calculated to dispose of us. Recently several hundred prisoners per day were being removed to Danville, and in two instances we were standing in view of them as their ranks filed past. Numbers were without shoes, nearly all without blankets or overcoats, and not a man did we see who was well fed and fully clad; but to the credit of the prisoners in Richmond, of all ranks, be it recorded, that, although they have shown heroic fortitude under suffering, and spurning the idea that their Government had forgotten them, have held fast their confidence in the final and speedy success of our cause. In addition to the above statement, we wish to be distinctly understood that the confederate medical officers connected with the hospitals referred to, Surgeons Wilkins, Simmons, and Sobal, and the hospital steward, Hollet, are not in any way, as far as our observation has extended, responsible for the state of things existing there, but on the other hand, we are bound in justice to bear testimony to their kindness and the faithful performance of duties with the limited means at their disposal.”[1]

—Among the prisoners captured at Chattanooga, were found a large number of those paroled at Vicksburgh. General Grant inquired whether he should proceed against them according to the established usage in such cases, which is to shoot the persons so found. The War Department forbid, it being manifestly unjust to execute soldiers who were required by the rebel government to break their parole.—General John H. Morgan, with six of his officers, escaped from the penitentiary at Columbus, Ohio.—(Doc. 37.)

[1] The surgeons who signed this statement were, Daniel Meeker, United States Navy; C. T. Liner, Assistant Surgeon Sixth Maine regiment; J. L. Brown, Assistant Surgeon One Hundred and Sixteenth Ohio volunteer infantry; and A. M. Parker, Assistant Surgeon First Maine cavalry.

November 26.—At Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a meeting of the United States Christian Commission was held, in behalf of the National prisoners at Richmond. Bishop Potter of Pennsylvania presided, and addresses were made by Governor Brough, of Ohio, Major Boles, late from Libby Prison, G. H. Stuart, President of the Christian Commission, and others.—An engagement took place at Warm Springs, North-Carolina. “It shows,” says a rebel correspondent, “that it was a very gallant affair on the part of our men. Lieutenant-Colonel Bryson, of the Twenty-fifth North-Carolina troops, with a detachment of eighty men, crossed the French Broad, and was joined that night by twenty militia, under Major Haywood. Proceeding on the march, and arriving at the enemy’s outpost at daylight, he was found in line of battle, having already discovered the plan. Although numbering about four hundred, the Yankees were charged and driven from the field. They came up the second time with the same result. A third time they were reenforced, perceiving which, Colonel Bryson gave the order to fall back, which was done in good order. In a hand-to-hand encounter, Sergeant Collins rushed forward and sacrificed his life to save Colonel Bryson’s. The enemy’s loss was thirty killed and wounded.”— Thanksgiving Day in all the loyal States.

—The Union army under the command of Major-General Meade, advanced, crossing the Rapidan at several points. General Lee, commanding the rebel forces, noticing the movement, issued the following general order: “The enemy is again advancing upon our capital, and the country once more looks to this army for its protection. Under the blessings of God, your valor has repelled every previous attempt, and, invoking the continuance of his favor, we cheerfully commit to him the issue of the coming contest.

“A cruel enemy seeks to reduce our fathers and our mothers, our wives and our children to abject slavery; to strip them of their property and drive them from their homes. Upon you these helpless ones rely to avert these terrible calamities, and to secure to them the blessings of liberty and safety. Your past history gives them the assurance that their trust will not be in vain. Let every man remember that all he holds dear depends upon the faithful discharge of his duty, and resolve to fight, and, if need be, to die, in defence of a cause so sacred and worthy the name won by this army on so many bloody fields.”—(Doc. 15.)

November 25.—An expedition composed of details from the First North-Carolina volunteers, Twelfth New-York cavalry, and the Twenty fourth New-York battery, under command of Captain George W. Graham, First North-Carolina volunteers, (Captain R. R. West, Twelfth New-York cavalry, having generously waived his rank, in deference to Captain Graham’s familiarity with the country to be traversed,) attacked a camp of rebels near Greenville, North-Carolina, and after a brief and gallant contest, more than fifty prisoners, a hundred stand of arms, and a considerable amount of subsistence and quartermaster’s stores fell into the hands of the Nationals, while but one of their men was fatally wounded.

It was an affair in which the sterner virtues of the soldier, patience and fortitude, were equally exhibited with gallantry and daring, but twenty-four hours having been occupied in all, and a march of nearly seventy miles having been performed.—General Peck’s Order.

—The battle of Chattanooga, Tennessee, closed this day. Missionary Ridge was carried completely by the National troops, and the rebels routed, so that they fled in the night (Docs. 14 and 18.)

November 24.—A court of inquiry convened by order of the rebel war department to examine and report facts and circumstances attending the capture of the city of New-Orleans, in April, 1862, and the defence of the city by the rebel troops under the command of General Mansfield Lovell, gave as their opinion that General Lovell’s “conduct was marked by all the coolness and self-possession due to the circumstances and his position; and that he evinced a high capacity for his command, and the clearest foresight in many of his measures for the defence of New-Orleans.” — General Orders, No. 152.

—Herschel V. Johnson, in a speech at Milledgeville, Georgia, used the following language: “There is no step backward. All is now involved in the struggle that is dear to man—home, society, liberty, honor, every thing — with the certainty of the most degraded fate that ever oppressed a people, if we fail. It is not recorded in history that eight millions of united people, resolved to be free, have failed. We cannot yield if we would. Yield to the Federal authorities—to vassalage and subjugation! The bleaching of the bones of one hundred thousand gallant soldiers slain in battle would be clothed in tongues of fire to curse to everlasting infamy the man who whispers yield. God is with us, because He is always with the right.” He closed in counselling a firm reliance on Providence, and the cultivation of a spirit of reliance and devotion.

—The Richmond Examiner of this date contained the following: “Five balls advertised, and flour one hundred and twenty-five dollars per barrel! Who prates of famine and want? Who is suffering for the necessaries of life? Does not all go ‘merry as a marriage bell?’ If the skeleton come in, put a ball-ticket at five dollars into its bony fingers, a masquerade ball costume upon its back of bony links, and send the grim guest into the ball-room to the sound of cotillion music”

—The second day of the battle of Chattanooga, Tennessee. General Hooker, in command of Geary’s division of the Twelfth corps, Osterhaus’s division of the Fifteenth corps, and two brigades of the Fourteenth corps, carried the north slope of Lookout Mountain with small loss, and a loss to the rebels of five or six hundred prisoners.

There was continuous fighting from twelve o’clock until after nightfall, but the National troops gallantly repulsed every attempt of the enemy to retake the position.

General Sherman crossed the Tennessee River before daylight this morning, at the mouth of South-Chickamauga, with three divisions of the Fifteenth corps, one division of the Fourteenth corps, and carried the northern extremity of Missionary Ridge.—(Docs. 14 and 18.)

—The Richmond Examiner published the following: “While a furious invading enemy is laying waste our fair fields, demanding unconditional submission to its government, offering no terms of peace, not even hinting at negotiation for peace upon any other basis, but avowing the unanimous purpose to deprive us of all right, of all law and of all property; and while our devoted armies are in the field, with their arms in their hands and their banners flying, to defy and resist and beat back that foul invasion, we do not comprehend how any man in the Confederacy can—we do not say get ‘honorable peace’—but even talk of honorable peace, save by vanquishing those invading enemies. If the political system of those invading enemies break up, by reason of reverses in war, or financial troubles; if certain States of their ‘Union’ remember that they have state rights, and act upon them by seceding from the Union, and offering us a peace, so far as they are concerned, it will be well; that will aid us materially in the one single task we have to achieve—the task of defeating and destroying the military power of our enemies. But reasonable confederates would be at a loss to know how we can contribute to that happy state of things, except by continued and successful resistance in arms. Our sole policy and cunningest diplomacy is fighting; our most insinuating negotiator is the confederate army in line of battle.

“Now we perceive, that just as Congress is about to meet, certain newspapers of the Confederacy are preparing the way for discussions in that body about some other method of obtaining peace. The other method suggested, in so far as we can comprehend it, consists in the several States of the Confederacy taking the matter out of the hands of the confederate government, ignoring the government and the army, and all that army has done and suffered for the independence of the Confederacy, and then making peace, each State for itself, as best it can. There would be an honorable peace!

“We are sorry to have to mention that such an idea has shown itself. It was believed that it was confined to about two newspapers, both of Raleigh, North-Carolina. But something very similar is to be found in two other newspapers of Atlanta. As it is extremely essential that the time of this Congress should not be diverted for one instant from the business of carrying on the war by any vain palaver about peace, peace, when there is no peace, we reluctantly advert to the disagreeable circumstance in order that the small distracting element may be disposed of and made innocuous the more speedily.”

—Governor Vance, in a message to the Legislature of North-Carolina, said: “We know, at last, precisely what we would get by submission, and therein has our enemy done us good service —abolition of slavery, confiscation of property, and territorial vassalage.

“These are the terms to win us back. Now, when our brothers bleed and mothers and little ones cry for bread, we can point them back to the brick-kilns of Egypt—thanks to Mr. Seward— plainly in view, and show them the beautiful clusters of Eschol which grow in the land of independence, whither we go to possess them. And we can remind them, too, how the pillar of fire and the cloud, the vouchsafed guidon of Jehovah, went ever before the hungering multitude, leading away, with apparent cruelty, from the fulness of servitude. With such a prospect before them, people will, as heretofore, come firmly up to the full measure of their duty if their trusted servants do not fail them. They will not crucify afresh their own sons, slain in their behalf, or put their gallant shades to open shame, by stopping short of full and complete national independence.”

November 23. — The battle of Chattanooga, Tenn., commenced this day. At half-past twelve o’clock, Generals Granger’s and Palmer’s corps, supported by General Howard’s, were advanced directly in front of the Union fortifications, drove in the enemy’s pickets, and carried his first line of rifle-pits between Chattanooga and Carter’s Creek. The Nationals captured nine commissioned officers and about one hundred enlisted men. Their loss was about one hundred and eleven men.

November 22.—A scouting-party of fifty men, belonging to Colonel Higginson’s regiment, First South-Carolina colored troops, was sent, under the command of Captain Bryant, Eighth Maine volunteers, and Captain Whitney, First South-Carolina colored volunteers, to release twenty-eight colored people held in pretended slavery by a man named Hayward, near Pocotaligo, S.C. The expedition was successful. The captives were released and their freedom restored to them. Two rebel horse-soldiers, stationed as pickets, were regularly captured as prisoners of war. These men were members of the First South-Carolina cavalry. Their comrades, seventy-five in number, under command of a major, pursued the raiding party toward the ferry at Barnwell’s Island. The negroes received them in ambush, and fired on them at twenty paces, emptying several saddles, and putting them to flight. Obtaining reinforcements and artillery, they tracked the retreating colored men with bloodhounds. The dogs dashed into the party in advance of their comrades, the rebels. One hound was shot, and left with broken legs upon the field. Five others were impaled upon the bayonets of the Union troops, and brought as trophies into their camp. The gallantry of the negroes on this occasion was manifested not merely by their brilliant bravery, but by the willingness with which they gave up the ferry-boats (in which they had crossed to the mainland) to their wounded and to the non-combatants on their return. In fording the river, two of their number were drowned. Another man, a corporal, was lost. Six of the party were wounded.

November 21.—The steamer Welcome was attacked this morning at Waterproof, La., by guerrillas, with cannon planted on the levee, and twelve balls and shells fired through and into the cabin and other parts of the boat, besides nearly three hundred Minié balls from the sharpshooters along the banks of the river.—Acting Master J. F. D. Robinson, commander of the Satellite, and Acting Ensign Henry Walters, who was in command of the Reliance, were dismissed from the Navy of the United States, for gross dereliction in the case of the capture of their vessels on the twenty-third of August, 1863. The Department of the Navy regretted “the necessity of this action in the case of Acting Ensign Walters, inasmuch as the Court report that ‘during the attack he acted with bravery and to the best of his ability, and which, in some measure, relieves his want of precaution against surprise from its otherwise inexcusable character, and shows that his failure to take them proceeded more from inexperience than negligence.'”—General Orders No. 24.

—At Little Rock, Ark., a large Union meeting was held, at which the “restoration of State rights under the old Government” was advocated, and a great number of persons took the oath of allegiance and enrolled themselves for home defence.—English Rebel blockade-runner steamer Banshee, was captured by the United States steamers Delaware and Fulton, off Wilmington, North-Carolina.

—The steamer Black Hawk, when about half a mile below Red River Landing, on the Mississippi River, was fired into from the east bank of the river by a battery of ten or twelve guns, and about fifteen round shot and shell struck the boat. One shell exploded in the Texas, setting fire to and burning that part of the boat and pilot-house. As soon as the captain and officers found the boat on fire, they ran her on a sandbar on the west side of the river, and immediately put all the passengers on shore, after which the fire was extinguished. While the boat lay aground on the sand-bar, the sharp-shooters were pouring in their murderous Minié balls, of which some three hundred struck the boat in different parts of her cabin and hull. It was the guerrillas’ intention to follow the boat, but the gunboat stationed at the mouth of Red River followed them so close, pouring in shell among them, that she drove them back, after which the gunboat took the Black Hawk in tow, and carried her back to Red River, where she repaired sufficiently to proceed on her way. The casualties on board the boat were very severe. Mr. Samuel Fulton, a brother of the captain, was shot in the leg by a cannon-ball. His leg was afterward amputated below the knee. A colored man, by the name of Alfred Thomas, had his head blown off while lying flat down on the cable-deck. James Keller, of Louisville, belonging to the Twenty-second Kentucky volunteers, received a wound in the arm from a fragment of a shell. His arm was afterward amputated, and he soon after died A passenger was slightly wounded in the arm.

November 20.—The Solicitor of the War Department, Mr. William Whiting, in a letter to a gentleman in Boston, wrote as follows:

“There are several serious difficulties in the way of continuing an exchange of prisoners. One is the bad faith of the enemy in putting into active service many thousands of paroled prisoners, captured at Vicksburgh and elsewhere, without releasing any of our soldiers held by them. But another difficulty of still graver importance is the peremptory refusal by the enemy to exchange colored soldiers and their white officers upon any terms whatever. It is well known that they have threatened to sell colored captured soldiers into slavery, and to hang their white officers.

“The Government demands that all officers and soldiers should be fairly exchanged, otherwise no more prisoners of war will be given up. The faith of the Government is pledged to these officers and troops that they shall be protected, and it cannot and will not abandon to the savage cruelty of slave-masters a single officer or soldier who has been called on to defend the flag of his country, and thus exposed to the hazards of war.

“It has been suggested that exchanges might go on until all except the colored troops and their white officers have been given up. But if this were allowed, the rebels would not only be relieved of the burden of maintaining our troops, but they would get back their own men, retaining their power over the very persons whom we are solemnly bound to rescue, and upon whom they could then, without fear of retaliation, carry into execution the inhuman cruelties they have so basely threatened.

“The President has ordered that the stern law of retaliation shall, without hesitation, be enforced, to avenge the death of the first Union soldier, of whatever color, whom the enemy shall in cold blood destroy or sell into slavery. All other questions between us may be postponed for future settlement, but the fair exchange of colored soldiers and of their white officers will be insisted on by the Government before another rebel soldier or officer will be exchanged.”