The Rebellion Record—A Diary of American Events; by Frank Moore

August 12.—The One Hundred and Twenty-third Illinois regiment, mounted infantry, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Biggs, returned to Winchester, Tenn., from a trip into Alabama, with the aim of disbanding a party of bandits, near the junction of Larkin’s Fork and Point Rock River. About three hundred of the Eleventh Texas regiment were encountered and driven back, being closely followed a considerable distance down Point Rock River. A number of prisoners were taken, and refugees, issuing from their hiding-places among the mountains, poured in continually until Colonel Biggs’s command withdrew toward Winchester.

—The United States steamer Wateree was launched at Chester, Pa., this morning.

August 11.—A meeting of the citizens of North-Carolina, representing every county in the First and Second Congressional districts and a portion of the Third, was held at Washington, N. C. The First North-Carolina Union regiment, stationed at that point, participated in the meeting.

Addresses were made and resolutions adopted expressing sympathy with the great conservative movement of North-Carolina, declaring an energetic prosecution of the war in that department to be the only means by which the Union sentiment in the interior of the State could be made practically useful in restoring her to the national jurisdiction, asking the Government for reenforccments for this purpose, accusing the confederate government of perfidy and cruelty toward North-Carolina, declaring that her people were therefore absolved from any further obligations to sustain it, placing the responsibility for the destruction of slavery upon Jefferson Davis and his co-conspirators against the Union, expressing the belief that North-Carolina would, notwithstanding, find ample compensation in the blessings of free labor for the present inconveniences of emancipation, rejoicing in the recent Union victory at the Kentucky election, denouncing copperheadism at the North, and commending the ability and patriotism of the Administration in the conduct of the war, and especially in the sound national currency originated by the Secretary of the Treasury.—President Lincoln closed the correspondence with the Governor of New York relative to the draft.

August 9.—A reconnoissance under Major Warden, of General Ransom’s staff, to Woodville, seventy miles from Natchez, Miss., destroyed five locomotives, forty-three platform and twelve passenger cars; and burned a rebel cotton factory at Woodville, and also cotton and manufacturing goods to the value of two hundred thousand dollars.

—John L. Chatfield, Colonel of the Sixth regiment of Connecticut volunteers, died at Waterbury, from wounds received in the assault on Fort Wagner, of July eighteenth.

August 8.—To secure and preserve discipline, provide against disaster from the elements or attack by the enemy, an order was issued from the “War Department, compelling the organization of troops on board government transports, and regulating their transportation.—Governor Horatio Seymour, of New-York, replied to the letter of President Lincoln, relative to the draft.

—This morning, the rebel steamer Robert Habersham, which had been occupied in watching the Union advance movement up the Savannah River, was entirely destroyed by an explosion of her boiler, while lying off Scrieven’s Ferry. The entire crew were either killed or mortally injured.

—A special order was issued by Brigadier General Mercer, in command at Savannah, Ga., impressing into the rebel service, one fifth of the able-bodied male slaves in Eastern, Southern, and South-western Georgia, for the purpose of erecting additional fortifications for the defence of Savannah. “Transportation will be furnished them and wages paid at the rate of twenty-five dollars per month. The Government will be responsible for the value of such negroes as may be killed by the enemy or may in any manner fall into his hands.”

—The gunboat Sagamore captured the sloop Clara Louisa, and schooners Southern Rights, Shot, and Ann, while endeavoring to evade the blockade of Key West, Florida.