The American Civil War

March 23.—An expedition under the command of General Steele left Little Rock, Ark., and went in pursuit of the rebel General Price.—The following order was issued by Brigadier General Nathan Kimball on assuming command of troops in the department of Arkansas: “The Commanding General intends to protect, to the fullest extent of his power, all citizens who may be in the country occupied by troops under his command, in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; knowing that in so doing he will assist in accomplishing the primary object of the government he serves.

“He will devote all his energies to the defeat of the enemies of that government; and although, as a soldier, he can feel respect for those openly in arms against it, yet robbers and guerrillas who have taken advantage of the unsettled state of the country to burn dwellings, murder their neighbors, and insult women, are in no respect soldiers, and when taken will not be treated as such.

“He requires all citizens to aid and assist the officers of the United States Government, and to stand firm in their allegiance to it.

“The loyal shall be protected, and the sympathizers with rebellion, though they may have taken the oath of allegiance to the Government of the United States, will be treated as rebels, unless they conform, in word and act, to the spirit of that oath.”

—By order of the Commander-in-Chief, the corps of the Army of the Potomac were reduced to three, namely, the Second, Fifth, and Sixth corps. The First and Third were temporarily reorganized and distributed among the Second, Fifth, and Sixth. Major-General G. K. Warren was assigned to the command of the Fifth corps, General W. S. Hancock continued to command the Second corps, and Major-General Sedgwick the Sixth.

—A daring rebel raid was made into the southern part of Green County to within five or six miles of Springfield, Mo., by a band of rebels numbering from eight to twelve, yesterday. Among the number were Louis Brashears and William Fulbright, (youngest son of Ephraim Fulbright,) both formerly of that county. The citizens collected and drove them out of the county to-day, and in a little fight with them killed Fulbright. In their flight southward the rebels killed Elijah Hunt and one Dotson, both of whom had formerly been in the rebel service.— Missouri Democrat, March 30.

March 22.—Major-General Lew. Wallace assumed command of the Middle Department, Eighth army corps, headquarters at Baltimore, Md., and issued orders in accordance therewith.— The Supreme Court of Georgia to-day unanimously affirmed the constitutionality of the confederate anti-substitute law.—A heavy snowstorm prevailed in Richmond, Va., and vicinity, the average depth being about one foot.

—Major-General Banks, from his headquarters at New-Orleans, Louisiana, issued general orders constituting a Board of Education, and defining their duties and powers.

March 21.—A battle occurred at Henderson’s Hill, La., between a portion of General A. J. Smith’s forces, under the command of General John A. Mower, and the rebels under General Richard Taylor, resulting in the defeat and rout of the latter, with a loss of five guns with caissons, four hundred horses, and about two hundred and fifty men, in killed, wounded, and missing. In a skirmish previous to the battle, Colonel II. B. Sargent, of General Banks’s staff, was wounded severely.—(Docs. 90 and 131.)

—Last night a body of rebels made an attack on the Union pickets, near Jenkins’s Island, South-Carolina, but were repulsed at every point by the Seventy-sixth Pennsylvania regiment, Colonel Campbell, doing duty at that point. The rebels approached in eight large flatboats, and came in force, evidently with a view of cutting off the pickets. Another attempt to gain a foothold on the island this night was baffled by Captain Kness’s company of the Seventy-sixth, which fired several deadly volleys into the boats, and drove them off. No casualties occurred on the Union side in either affair.—The steamer Chesapeake, surrendered by the British authorities, arrived at Portland, Maine.

—The rebel steamer Clifton, formerly the United States gunboat of that name, while attempting to run the blockade at Sabine Pass, with over a thousand bales of cotton, got aground on the bar. She remained immovable, and was burned to prevent her from falling into the hands of the Nationals. — The rebel schooner Wild Pigeon was captured by the Hendrick Hudson.

March 20.—The expedition, composed of the steamers Columbine and Sumter, that left Pilatka, Florida, for Lake George, to capture the rebel steamer Hattie Brock, returned to the former place, having been successful.

—This morning, while off Elbow Light, in latitude twenty-six degrees thirty-three minutes north, longitude seventy-six degrees twenty-five minutes west, the United States steamer Tioga overhauled and captured the sloop Swallow, from the Combahee River, South-Carolina, bound to Nassau, N. P. One hundred and eighty bales of cotton, eighty barrels of resin, and twenty-five boxes of tobacco were found on board the prize.—The rebel steamer Florida was captured by the National gunboat Honeysuckle.

March 19.—The correspondent of the Cincinnati Gazette, at Washington, Mr. Whitelaw Reid, (“Agate,”) wrote as follows concerning the Emancipation Proclamation: “A recent allusion to the fact that Mr. Secretary Chase’s pen supplied the concluding sentence of the Emancipation Proclamation, has been received with a surprise that indicates a less general knowledge on the subject than might have been expected.

“When the final draft of the Proclamation was presented by the President to the Cabinet, it closed with the paragraph stating that the slaves if liberated would be received into the armed service of the United States. Mr. Chase objected to the appearance of a document of such momentous importance without one word beyond the dry phrases necessary to convey its meaning; and finally proposed that there be added to the President’s draft the following sentence:

“‘And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.'”

“Mr. Lincoln adopted the sentence as Mr. Chase wrote it, only interlining after the word ‘Constitution’ the words, ‘upon military necessity;’ and in that form the Proclamation went to the world, and history.

“The President originally resolved upon the policy of issuing this Proclamation in the summer of 1862. As he has expressed it himself, every thing was going wrong; we seemed to have put forth about our utmost efforts, and he really didn’t know what more to do, unless he did this. Accordingly, he prepared the preliminary Proclamation, nearly in the form in which it subsequently appeared, called the Cabinet together, and read it to them.

“Mr. Montgomery Blair was startled. ‘If you issue that proclamation, Mr. President,’ he exclaimed, ‘you will lose every one of the fall elections.’

“Mr. Seward, on the other hand, said: ‘I approve of it, Mr. President, just as it stands. I approve of it in principle, and I approve the policy of issuing it I only object to the time. Send it out now, on the heels of our late disasters, and it will be construed as the convulsive struggle of a drowning man. To give it proper weight, you should reserve it until after some victory.’

“The President assented to Mr. Seward’s view, and it was withheld till the fall, when it was issued almost precisely as originally prepared. The one to which Mr. Chase supplied the concluding sentence was the final Proclamation, issued on the subsequent first of January”

—The Legislature of Georgia in both branches to-day adopted Linton Stephens’s peace resolutions, earnestly “recommending that our government, immediately after every signal success of our arms, when none can impute its action to alarm instead of a sincere desire for peace, shall make to the government of our enemy an official offer of peace, on the basis of the great principle declared by our common fathers in 1776, accompanied by the distinct expression of a willingness, on our part, to follow that principle to its true logical consequences, by agreeing that any Border State whose preference for our association may be doubted, (doubts having been expressed as to the wishes of the Border States,) shall settle the question for herself, by a convention to be elected for that purpose, after the withdrawal of all military forces on both sides from her limits.”

They also adopted his resolution declaring that “the recent act of Congress to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in cases of arrests, ordered by the President, Secretary of War, or general officer commanding the Trans-Mississippi military department, is an attempt to maintain the military in the usurpation of the constitutional judicial functions of issuing warrants, and to give validity to unconstitutional seizures of the persons of the people; and the said act, by its express terms, confines its operation to the upholding of the class of unconstitutional seizures, the whole suspension attempted to be authorized by it, and the whole act itself, are utterly void.”

“That in the judgment of this General Assembly, the said act is an alarming assault upon the liberty of the people, without any existing necessity to excuse it, and beyond the power of any possible necessity to justify it; and our Senators and Representatives in Congress are earnestly urged to take the first possible opportunity to have it blotted from the record of our laws.”

Both houses also adopted a resolution turning over to the confederate government all persons between the ages of seventeen and eighteen, and forty-five and fifty years.

They also unanimously adopted a resolution expressive of confidence in the President, and thanks to the confederate armies for reenlisting for the war.—Mobile Papers.

March 18.—Colonel Stokes’s Fifth Tennessee cavalry again overtook Champ Ferguson and his guerrillas on a little stream called Calfkiller River, near where it empties into Caney Fork, Tenn., and there killed eight of them.

—The behavior of the rebel brigade under General Pettigrew, at the battle of Gettysburgh, was vindicated in this day’s Richmond Enquirer.

March 17.—Colonel William Stokes, in command of the Fifth Tennessee cavalry, surprised a party of rebel guerrillas under Champ Ferguson, at a point near Manchester, Tenn., and after a severe fight routed them, compelling them to leave behind twenty-one in killed and wounded.—This morning, at a little before three o’clock, an attempt was made on Seabrook Island by a large force of rebels, who came down the Chickhassee River in boats. They approached in two large flats, filled with men, evidently sent forward to reconnoitre, with a numerous reserve force further back, to cooperate in case any points were found to be exposed. One of the boats came down to the mouth of Skull Creek, where they attacked a picket-boat containing a corporal and four men of the Seventy-sixth Pennsylvania. They first fired three shots and then a whole volley, and succeeded in capturing the boat and those in it, after a severe hand-to-hand fight. Whether there were any casualties could not be ascertained. Further on, meeting an unexpected resistance, they retreated.

—Lieutenant-general Grant formally assumed the command of the armies of the United States to-day. The following was his order on the subject:

Headquarters of the Armies of the United States,

Nashville, Tenn., March 17, 1864.

General Orders, No. 12.

In pursuance of the following order of the President:

“Executive Mansion, Washington, D. C,
March 10, 1864

“Under the authority of the Act of Congress to appoint the grade of Lieutenant-General in the army, of February 29, 1864, Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant, U. S. A., is appointed to the command of the armies of the United States.

“Abraham Lincoln.”

—I assume command of the armies of the United States. Headquarters will be in the field, and, until further orders, will be with the army of the Potomac. There will be an office headquarters in Washington, D. C, to which all official communications will be sent, except those from the army where the headquarters are at the date of their address.

March 16.—A party of guerrillas belonging to Roddy’s command made an attack upon the Chattanooga Railroad, at a point between Tullahoma and Estelle Springs, and, after robbing the passengers and committing other outrages, fled on the approach of another train loaded with soldiers. Among other atrocious acts was the following: There were four colored boys on the train acting in the capacity of brakemen, and two black men who were officers’ servants. These six poor creatures were placed in a row, and a squad of about forty of the robbers, under a Captain Scott, of Tennessee, discharged their revolvers at them, actually shooting the poor fellows all to pieces.—An engagement took place at a point two miles east of Fort Pillow, Tenn., between a body of Nationals and about one thousand rebels, who were routed with a loss of fifty killed and wounded.

—Captains Sawyer and Flynn, who had been held at Libby Prison, under sentence of death, in retaliation for the execution of two rebel spies, hung in Kentucky by General Burnside, were released. They were exchanged for General W. F. Lee and Captain Winder, who were held by the United States as personal hostages for their safety.

—The advance of General A. J. Smith’s forces, cooperating with General Banks’s, and under the command of Brigadier-General John A. Mower, reached Alexandria, La., accompanied by Admiral David D. Porter and his fleet of gunboats. —(Doc. 131.)

March 15.—Owing to the disturbance of the popular mind produced by the enrolment of slaves for the army in Kentucky, Governor Bramlette issued an address to the people of that State, suggesting moderation, and calling upon them “to uphold and maintain the Government as constituted, and obey and enforce its just demands, as the only hope of perpetuating free institutions.”—Fort De Rossy, on the Red River, below Alexandria, La., was captured this day by the combined military and naval forces of the United States, under General A. J. Smith and Admiral D. D. Porter.— (Docs. 96 and 131.)