August 26.—A fight took place near Perryville, Arkansas, between the rebel forces under Cabell, who were retreating from Camp Stand Watie, and the National troops belonging to the army of General Blunt, in which the former were routed with considerable loss.—Major John J. Stevenson, Lieutenant D. H. Chambers, and sixty men of Rober’s Third Pennsylvania artillery, left Fortress Monroe, Va., last Sunday night, on the armed steamboat C. P. Smith, and reached the Chickahominy River the next morning. They proceeded about ten miles up, landing scouting-parties at different points along the shore, and destroying a number of small boats. When about nine miles up the Chickahominy, they met a detached party of thirty rebel cavalry, belonging to Robinson’s regiment. The latter were repulsed, without any injury being sustained. They then shelled and destroyed the building used as the headquarters of Colonel Robinson, of the rebel army. Two men were captured, who were released after all the information that could be obtained from them was received. The expedition returned to Fortress Monroe this afternoon, having succeeded in the reconnoissance, with the most satisfactory results.—The steamer Live Oak was captured at Berlin, Mo., by a gang of guerrillas, who, having plundered the boat and passengers, released them.—The rifle-pits of the rebels at Vinegar Hill, on Morris Island, S. C., in front of Fort Wagner, were assaulted and captured by the troops of General Gillmore’s army, with a loss of ten killed and seventeen wounded.—The battle at White Sulphur Springs, Va., was fought this day.—(Doc. 157.)
The Rebellion Record—A Diary of American Events; by Frank Moore
August 25.—Early this morning, Deputy Marshal Taylor of Coshocton County, Ohio, with a squad of five men, went to a house near Chili, in Crawford Township, to arrest two men, Wens and J. Lour, Germans, who were drafted last fall, but had, up to that time, evaded the authorities. Not finding them at the house, they approached the barn to search it, when Wens and Lour came out of it, armed, and fired. Taylor and his men closed upon them to secure them, when a hand-to-hand fight occurred. Stafford, one of the Marshal’s men, fell dead, pierced with nine balls. One other of the Marshal’s men was severely wounded, and Wens and Lour, the two drafted men, both killed.—Cincinnati Gazette.
—The advance-guard of General Steele’s army, under General Davidson, consisting of five thousand men, arrived in front of Brownsville, Arkansas, and immediately opened fire upon the town. A sharp fight was kept up for about fifteen minutes, when the rebels commenced a retreat, evacuating the town and leaving, in the hands of the Nationals, General Burbridge and a number of privates.
August 24.—A party of Missouri cavalry, under the command of Colonel R. G. Woodrow, made a descent upon Pocahontas, Ark., and succeeded in routing and capturing a number of rebels, among whom was Brigadier-General Jeff Thompson.—(Doc. 154.)
General Gillmore, in a despatch from his headquarters on Morris Island, S. C., reported the partial demolition of Fort Sumter, as the result of seven days’ bombardment of that work.— Charleston was again shelled by the troops under General Gillmore.—(See Supplement.)
—A meeting of a portion of the people of Cumberland County, Va., was held this day, at which the following resolutions were unanimously adopted:
Resolved, That we heartily approve of the action of our Governor in calling an extra session of the Legislature for the purposes designated.
Resolved, That whereas we are engaged in a war for the maintenance of principles dear to every freeman, and that we are firmly resolved to prosecute this war under all circumstances and through whatever disasters may befall us, until our independence is established; therefore, we do request our representatives in the Senate and House of Delegates to advocate the passage of a bill for the enrolment, organization, and drilling, for home defence, of all capable of rendering such service, who are not already subject to military duty.
Resolved, That the said representatives be requested to advocate all measures having for their object the vigorous prosecution of this war.
Resolved, That we look with abhorrence on the idea of the reconstruction of the Union with the United States.
Resolved, That these proceedings be published in any Richmond papers.
—A skirmish took place at Coyle’s Tavern, on Little River turnpike, near Fairfax, Va., between a detachment of the Second Massachusetts cavalry and Mosby’s guerrillas. The Nationals, numbering only twenty-five, were attacked front and rear at the same time, but fought manfully. Their loss was two killed, three wounded, and nine taken prisoners, together with all the horses they had in charge, fifteen of which, however, were afterward recaptured, leaving eighty-five still in the hands of the enemy. The loss of the enemy was one captain and one lieutenant killed, and one lieutenant and three privates wounded. Mosby was himself wounded in two places, side and thigh. Colonel Lowell pursued the enemy from Centreville as far as Snicker’s Gap, but they succeeded in making their escape by reason of having constant remounts of fresh horses.—Fitz-Hugh Lee, with a rebel cavalry force, crossed the Rappahannock River near Corbin’s Neck, six miles below Fredericksburgh, but was soon driven back by the brigade of General Custer, with a loss in prisoners of three engineer officers, and a number of privates killed and wounded. The Union loss was slight—The Richmond Whig of this day contained the following: “A Southern paper, some weeks ago, threw out a suggestion that the Confederacy should arm some five or six hundred thousand negroes, and precipitate them upon the Yankees. The suggestion was doubtless to frighten the Yankees; but it has imposed upon a few of our own people. The proposition is too preposterous for serious discussion. It is enough to say it would be exchanging a profitable laborer for a very unprofitable soldier. Let the Yankees have negro armies. Nothing but their cowardice could have betrayed them into such a folly. They use the poor creatures as breastworks, but thus far with very little advantage. The Southern people arc willing to employ their slaves in any way that would tell best against the enemy. But it has yet to appear that they can do so in any manner so effective as in raising food for our armies. Some may be occasionally used in ditching and throwing up breastworks, and it is possible a limited number might be advantageously substituted for teamsters; though, in respect to the last, there may be doubts. In the main, no doubt, the most useful function compatible with their capacities is that to which they are accustomed—food-raising.”
October 24.—An order from the rebel War Department at Richmond went into effect, subjecting to conscription and enrolment all clerks who entered upon clerkships at the several departments, after October 1862. — Adair, Ky., was visited by a band of guerrillas under the chief Dillsbury, who, after plundering the inhabitants, returned into Tennessee.
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.
