Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1912 — The CIVIL WAR [ARTICLE]

The CIVIL WAR

FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK

January 21, ?B£2. The Union reconnoißance In force by General McClemand in the direction of Columbus, Kentucky, return* ed to Cairo. The expedition, consisting. of nearly five thousand men, left Cairo ten days ago and penetrated to a point within a mile and a half of the Confederate defenses about Columbus. The Confederates, seeing the enemy in such force, expected and prepared for an attack. The Union force withdrew, after ascertaining the position, extent and strength of the Confederate defenses. The expedition resulted in the acquisition of valuable information concerning roads that were not marked on the maps in the possession of the Federal officers, as well as a knowle'dge of the Confederate position. Adjutant-General Harding reported, the number of citizens of Missouri that had enlisted in the Union arm;, for three years at 33,882. Lieutenant Ammen, commanding the United States gunboat Seneca, reported to Commodore Dupont that* the negroes in the neighborhood of Port Royal, South Carolina, which was in the hands of the Federal army and navy, were anxious to be furnished with guns. January 22, 1862. I The Memphis Argus published the following: "We are every day called upon to publish the farcical freaks of the Federal legislation which transpire in the Lincoln congress, as a part of the extraordinary history of the times. . . . We notice » . . a bill which one Mr. Hutchins, of Ohio, has announced he will soon introduce into the lower house of that august body. The measure very humanely proposes that the enlightened and Christian north shall aßlume complete control over the ignorant and barbarous south, reducing all her states to the condition of a territorial or provincial government, and then immediately abolish slavery within their limits. . . . But, happily for"the south, the issue is not now one of legislation, but of the sword, not of the ballot, but of the bayonet.” Marble Nash Taylor, loyal provisional governor of North Carolina, made the arrival of General Burnside ah occasion to issue a proclamation from Hatteras, North Carolina, congratulating the people of the state on their deliverance from thraldom by the “invincible arms of the republic,” calling upon them to co-operate with the army in restoring their rights, so recently lost, and appointing the 22d of February as the day on which the ordinances of the provisional convention of November 18 should be submitted to the people for ratification. He also called for an election of United States congressmen, for the same day, to fill the vacancies then existing in the representation of North Carolina in that body. January 23, 1862. Major-General Halleck, commanding the department of the Missouri, threw into jail citizens of St. Louis who endeavored, by legal process, to escape his general order Nb. 24, under which sympathizers of the south were obliged to pay assessments for the benefit of the southwestern fugitives. Samuel Engler, a prominent merchant, refusing to pay his assessment, suffered a seizure of his property to the extent of his assessment and a penalty of twenty-five per cent added. Upon an attempt to recover the property by replevin, both he and his attorney were seized and thrown into the military prison, and subsequently expelled the Union lines, with orders not to return without special permission. General Halleck justified his action under the plea of martial law. A force of one hundred Confederate cavalry entered Blandville, Kentucky, and carried off the books and records of the county. The captain of the band assured the citizens that any who had suffered at the hands of the Union soldiers or who should be made to suffer, would be reimbursed out of levies qn Union sympathizers. The Confederate steamer Calhoun was captured off the southwest pass of the Mississippi river by one of the blockading squadron. The Confederates deserted the vessel after firing her,, but the fire was extinguished by the Unioh sailors and the ( steamer taken off. A stone fleet was sunk by the Federals in the channels of Charlestown harbor to further block the entrances to the port. January 24, 1862. A large meeting in honor of the late General Zollicoffer, killed in tbe battle at Mill Springs, Ky., on January 19, was held in the St. Charles hotel, New Orleans. The following resolutions were adopted: "Resolved, that we have received .the intelligence of the death of General Felix K. Zollicoffer,, with feelings of the profoundest sorrow, and lament bis untimely end as an irreparable loss to the cause for which he heroically gave him life. In private life, or in discharging his public duties, we always found' him an incorruptible patriot Cool and collected amidst troubles, he was unfaltering in the execution of his purpose. *ft> man. since General Andrew Jackson,'enjoyed, so completely, the con-

fldence and undivided esteem of the people of Tennessee. "Resolved, That we mourn hie death as a great public loss, which is only relieved by the recollection that he fell fighting bravely at the head of hisjcolumn, against thelnvaderaofhia country.” Two blockade runners, endeavoring to run tl)e blockade off Pas a I’Outre, at the mouth of the Mississippi, went ashore and were burfled by their crews, who escaped. The schooners were laden with cotton. , j The Union light boat stationed near the middle ground at the entrance to the Chesapeake, broke from its moorings and went ashore at Pleasure House Beach, near Cape Henry. The vessel and crew fell into the hands of the Confederates. January 25, 1862. William H. Seward, secretary of state for the United States, Issued an order to the marshal of the District of Columbia directing him “not to receive into custody any persons claimed to be held to service or labor within the District, or elsewhere, and not charged with any crime or misdemeanor, unless upon arrest or commitment, pursuant to law, as fugitives from such labor or service,” and “not to retain any such fugitives in cusody beyond a period of thirty days from their arrest and commitment, unless by special order of competent civil authority.” The order was to be enforced ten days after its issuance, and had do relation to arrests made by military authority. Governor Pierpont declared vacant ■all the civil offices, on the eastern shore of Virginia, beyond the Chesapeake, recently occupied by a Federal force, and the commanding general of the force issued orders for an election of such officers. The Confederate prisoners taken with the capture of Hatteras Inlet, North Carolnia, who had been released on parole after a period of confinement In Fort Warren, Boston harbor, were released from their parole, having been exchanged for a like number of Union prisoners. Henry S. Foote of Mississippi offered peace resolutions in the Confederate congress at Richmond.

January 26, 1862. General Halleck Issued an order commanding the president and officers of the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce, private organization of business men, to take the oath of alleglance to the United States. If any one of them shall have failed to do so within ten dayß, his office shall be declared vacated, and any atempt on his part to perform its functions will subject him to arrest for contempt and punishment according to the laws of war,” was, the Import of the threat contained in the order. Fifteen thousand men paraded the streets of New in celebration of the first anniversary of the Independence of Louisiana, the state having seceeded on January 26,1861. The parade was followed by a banquet in the St. Charles hotel, at which the governor and high state officials were present. - A reconnoisance of two Federal regiments and a company of cavalry from Camp George Wood, near Munfordville, Ky., developed the presence o( Gen. landman’s Confederate brigade three miles beyond Horse Cave. The railroad track was found destroyed in places to a point within four miles of the Federal the roads were barricaded with trees felled by the Confederates, and the reservoirs In the countryside were reeking with the stench of dead horses and hogs and cattle the Confederates had killed, in their program of making the Union advance as difficult as. possl ble. . °

January 27, 1862. The Reverend Bishop Ames of the Methodist Episcopal church, and Hamilton Fish of New York where appointed by the president as commissioners to visit tUe Confederate prisons and tend to the necessities and wants of the Union soldiers held there. The Norfolk Day Book commented as follows on the appointments: “The Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, who succeeds General Cameron in King Lincoln’s war office, favors us with a remarkable document, the cool effrontery of which excites our unqualified admiration. The exquisite modesty of this proposition to send official inspectors of our defences and general condition entitles Mr. Stanton to the reputation of being the most impudent man among all King Lincoln’s proverbially impudent subjects.” In the Western Virginia Legislature a proposition was introduced to provide that no slave should be brought into the state, and that all children born of slave parents after the first of January, 1865, should be free, and placed under an apprenticeship by the state. The proposition was referred to the committee on General Pro vis ions. Diplomatic correspondence passed between Earl Russell and Secretary Seward, in which the former condemned in strong terms the fact that the British schboner James Campbell, captured for a, breach of the blockade, had been brought into New York with the English flag flying below the American flag. Secretary Steward replied that the unseemly act was. occasioned by a misapprehension of his duties on the part of the Federal officer to charge of the prise, and that Orders had been issued to prevent a repetition of the offense. Tlie president of the United States issued General Order No. 1, commanding a general advance against the Confederate forces in *the field on Febru-ary-22- ' (Copyright, HU. W W. O. Chapmen.)