The American Civil War

August 23.—Fort Fisher, situated below Wilmington, N. C., was bombarded by the National frigate Minnesota.

August 22.—The bombardment of Fort Sumter was continued and finally reduced to a ruin, although not captured by the Nationals. Six hundred and four shots were fired at the Fort during the day, of which four hundred and nineteen struck inside and outside. The ceast wall was crushed and breached so that the shot swept through the Fort, the parapet was undermined, the north-west wall knocked down, and all the guns dismounted.—(See Supplement.)

—A detachment of the Twelfth Pennsylvania cavalry, under command of Captain Gerry, were ordered by Acting Brigadier-General L. B. Pierce on a reconnoissance from Martinsburgh, Va. Going to Bunker Hill, and thence to Leetown, they encountered the enemy, and captured a number of the rebel Gillmore’s men, one lieutenant and one horse, and returned to camp this afternoon without loss.

—No attention having been paid to General Gillmore’s demand for the surrender of Fort Sumter, and other rebel works in Charleston harbor, heavy rifled shells were thrown into Charleston, from a battery located in a marsh five mile’s distant from that city—a range, before that time never attained by any piece of artillery known to the world; General Beauregard protested against the bombardment as “inhuman and unheard of.”

—The United States gunboats Satellite and Reliance were captured to-night off the mouth of the Rappahannock River, by a party of rebels, under the command of Lieutenant Commander J. Taylor Wood, of the rebel navy.—Colonel Wilder, with a force belonging to the army of the Cumberland, crossed the Tennessee River, opposite Shell Mound, and burned the railroad bridge over the Nicojack, destroying for the time all communication between the rebels at Chattanooga and those in the vicinity of Bridgeport, Ala.—A riot occurred at Danville, Ill., in which three citizens were killed and a number wounded.—The schooner Wave, having run the blockade at San Luis Pass, near Galveston, Texas, was captured by the National gunboat Cayuga.

—The expedition to Central Mississippi, which left La Grange, Tenn., on the thirteenth instant, returned this day, having met with the greatest success. The force consisted of detachments of the Third Michigan, Second Iowa, Eleventh Illinois, Third Illinois, Fourth Illinois, and Ninth Illinois cavalry, and a part of the Ninth Illinois mounted infantry, all under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Phillips, of the Ninth Illinois infantry. They left the line of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, and proceeded by different routes to Oxford, Miss., where the force united and moved on to Grenada, via Water Valley and Coffeyville, meeting with but little opposition till the seventeenth instant, when within eight miles of Grenada. Here the rebels began to oppose their further progress. But they pushed steadily forward, driving the enemy before them and compelling him to fly from behind his fortifications at Grenada, and the victorious troops entered the town with the loss of but one man. The rebel loss is unknown. Several of their wounded were found in the hospital at that place. The Unionists captured quite a number of prisoners. During the evening Colonel Phillips was joined by a force of eight hundred cavalry from Vicksburgh, under the command of Colonel Winslow, of the Fourth Iowa cavalry. The result of the capture was that the Unionists came into possession of sixty-five locomotives and five hundred cars.

As the enemy had destroyed the railroad bridges across the Tallabusha River before he retreated from the town, it was wholly impracticable to run the stock North, and so it was given over to the flames, together with the large railroad buildings belonging to the Mississippi Central and Mississippi and Tennessee railroads, which form a junction at that place. Probably the value of the property destroyed was not less than three millions of dollars, and the loss to the rebels is wholly irreparable. The forces of Colonel Winslow and Lieutenant-Colonel Phillips were joined together here, and proceeded northward on the line of the Mississippi and Tennessee Railroad, meeting with but little opposition on the route. After crossing the Tallahatchie River at Panola, the forces separated, and the Vicksburghers proceeded to Memphis, and the rest of the forces to their respective camps on the Memphis and Charleston Railroad.

August 21.—Roger A. Pryor, a brigadier-general in the rebel army, resigned his commission. —Lawrence, Kansas, was invaded and pillaged by a band of rebel guerrillas, under the command of the chief Quantrell—(Doc. 119.)

—General Gillmore, having rendered Fort Sumter untenable as a fortification, demanded its surrender, together with the rebel forts on Morris Island, threatening to shell Charleston, should his demand not be complied with.—(See Supplement.)

—The United States ship Bainbridge foundered in a storm off Cape Hatteras, and seventy-nine of the crew were lost.

—Chattanooga was shelled by the National forces under Colonel Wilder. The cannonade commenced at ten o’clock in the morning, and continued at intervals until five o’clock in the afternoon. Every piece from which the rebels opened was eventually silenced, although they fired with not less than nineteen guns. The only casualty on the Union side was the wounding of one man, Corporal A brain McCook, belonging to Lilly’s battery.—General Meade issued an order regulating the circulation of newspapers in the army of the Potomac.—The rebel steamer Everglade, while endeavoring to run out of Savannah River, was overhauled and sunk near Tybee Island. Twenty-two of her passengers and crew were captured.

August 20.—Acting Brigadier-General B. F. Onderdonk, First New-York Mounted Rifles, and two companies of the Eleventh Pennsylvania cavalry, returned to Portsmouth, Va., from a raid into North-Carolina. They passed through Edenton, N. C., and opened communication with Captain Roberts, in command at South-Mills. Thence they proceeded to Pasquotank and Hertford, and while about half-way between the two places, were attacked by the guerrillas, and in the skirmish lost two mounted riflemen. They killed thirty guerrillas, and drove several into the Dismal Swamp, where they were drowned; captured ninety horses, thirty mules, and other cattle.— (Doc. 159.)

—Colonel Wilder’s cavalry, the advance of the army of the Cumberland, reached the eastern base of Waldon’s Ridge, en route to Chattanooga.—General Beauregard, at Charleston, S. C., issued an order relative to the observation of fast-day, appointed by Jefferson Davis.

August 19.—Drafting commenced in New-York City, and was conducted without any disturbance. Governor Seymour issued a proclamation, counselling peace and submission to the draft, and repeating his determination to test the constitutionality of the law under which the draft was made.

August 18.—Lieutenant Bross, with a detachment of the Engineer regiment, on an expedition about twelve miles south of Pocahontas, Ark., was attacked by Colonel Street’s company, at a point where defence was difficult After a brief skirmish, Lieutenant Bross drew his men in line of battle, and charged upon the rebels, who broke and ran. They were chased for five miles, when four were captured, with several of their horses and mules. Colonel Street was among those pursued. He was subsequently discovered and chased, and pressed so hard, that he jumped from his horse, and hid himself in a swamp and undergrowth. In Street’s saddle-bags were found the pay-roll of a company of the First Mississippi militia, as follows: One hundred and fifty men all told, twenty-two prisoners of war, forty-two absent without leave, and nine turned over to another company, leaving his present strength seventy-one men. — The British steamer Hebe was run ashore near New-Inlet, N. C., and afterward destroyed by the United States steamer Niphon. One of the Niphon’s boats was swamped, and her crew captured by the rebels, who lined the shore, firing on the boats charged with the destruction of the Hebe.—The Forty-seventh regiment of Massachusetts volunteers, under the command of Colonel Marsh, returned to Boston, from the seat of war.—The bombardment of Fort Sumter was continued.

August 17.—The bombardment of Fort Sumter commenced this morning at daybreak, by the siege-batteries, and the naval shore battery, under General Gillmore, assisted by the Ironsides and the entire monitor fleet, led by Admiral Dahlgren. Fort Gregg, the innermost battery of the rebels on Morris Island, and Fort Wagner, were silenced. A shot from the latter fort struck the monitor Catskill, and, forcing off a portion of the interior lining of the ship, instantly killed Commander Rodgers and Paymaster Woodbury. —(See Supplement.)

—Major-general Dix, from his headquarters at New-York, issued an address to the citizens of that place, in view of the enforcement of the draft, about to take place, imploring them to preserve order.

—Robert Toombs, of Georgia, addressed the following letter to Dr. A. Bees of Americus, in the same State:

“My Dear Sir: Your letter of the fifteenth instant, asking my authority to contradict the report that ‘I am in favor of reconstruction,’ was received this evening. I can conceive of no extremity to which my country could be reduced in which I would for a single moment entertain any proposition for any union with the North on any terms whatever. When all else is lost, I prefer to unite with the thousands of our own countrymen who have found honorable deaths, if not graves, on the battle-field. Use this letter as you please.”

—The rebel steamer Nita, having sailed from Havana, on the thirteenth, was captured by the Union steamer De Soto, in lat 29° 45′, long. 86″ 40′, while attempting to violate the blockade. —The Fourth Massachusetts and Twenty-eighth Maine regiments passed through Buffalo, NewYork, en route for home.—An order, regulating the discharge of prisoners, was issued from the War Department.

—Captain Wm. S. Hotchkiss, commander of the Union gunboat General Putnam, was killed while engaged in an expedition up the Piankatank River, Va., by a party of guerrillas.

August 16.—The rebel steamer Cronstadt, from Wilmington, N. C., for Nassau, N. P., was captured by the Union gunboat Rhode Island, at a point forty miles from Abaco.—The letter from President Lincoln to the Union Convention at Springfield, Ill., was made public. It is remarkable for its plain strong sense, and for directness of purpose and clearness of language. — Bridgeport, Alabama, was evacuated by the rebel forces.—The rebel blockade-runner, Alice Vivian, was captured by the United States steamer, De Soto, under the command of Captain William M. Walker.

August 15.—Major-General Rosecrans issued an order, holding the citizens in the Department of the Cumberland responsible for guerrilla operations.—(Doc. 150.)