Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 64, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 March 1912 — SIVILWAR [ARTICLE]

SIVILWAR

FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK

March 4, 1862. Andrew Johnson, recently appointed provisional governor of Tennessee, began to organize the government of that state. He had been waiting until his nomination as Brigadier General by the president should be confirmed by the senate. It being advisable that he have specific military authority in the work which he was to undertake. The appointment was confirmed on the morning ofthle day. It was intended that Gen. Johnson should preside over the government of the state until a regular government could be reorganized. The Richmond Dispatch printed a story of a man arriving from the south on the fourth, who stated that “the whole country is In a blaze of patriotic enthusiasm. The late reverses have awakened a military spirit, which throws into the shade the demonstrations at the beginning of the war. The whole population is off<ing Itself en masse. Nothing like The universal and fervid awakening of the people to the exigencies of the time has occurred since the beginning of the war. Men of all ages are eager to unite In the work of driving back the foul Invader from our southern homes, and even the women, if they could procure arms, would buckle them on and hasten to the fields. As it Is, the prayers of mothers, wives, daughters, are sent np unceasingly to heaven In behalf of the case, the cause, and the course, that Is giving strength even to the arms of old age, converting boys Into veterans, and the weak and /timid Into heroes.”

March 5, 1862. John Ericsson’s turreted Ironclad Monitor was delivered to the government for trial. An order was issued ' at Jackson, Tenn., by the Confederate Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard assuming command of the Confederate army of the Mississippi. The order declared that the northern invader must be "made to atone” for the reverses experienced by the southern arms. The U. S. S. S. Water Witch, after a long chase off St. Andrews Bay, west of Florida, overhauled and brought up with the Confederate schooner William Mallory, which surrendered after several shots had been fired at her. The Mallory was from Havana, bound for any port that she could make through the blockade. She was an extremely fast sailor, having shown her heels to the Water Witch for five hours. A proclamation was issued by F. W. Pickens, governor of South Carolina, calling on the people to complete their quota of five more regiments, called for by the Confederate government The Confederate cavalry made a demonstration against the National picket line about Columbus, Ky., and forced It to contract until it came within touch of the gunboats. Maj. Gen. Bragg of the Confederate army Issued an order from Jackson, Miss., declaring Memphis to be under martial law. March 6,1862.

John Ericsson's turreted ironclad "Monitor” sailed for Fortress Monroe. President Lincoln’s views on the emancipation of the slaves were developed in a message sent to congress. Declaring his belief that emancipation must be gradual and not sudden, President Lincoln suggested that the house and senate join in resolutions offering “that the United States ought to cooperate with any state which may adopt a gradual abolishment of star very, giving to such state pecuniary aid, to be used by such state in its discretion to compensate for the inconvenience, public and private, produced by such a change of system.” The president said that the “war has been an Indispensable mean” for the pres* ervation of the Union, and declares that the present proposition is offered as something that promised “great efficiency toward ending the struggle." A squad of Van Alien’s Union cavalry surprised and captured a Confederate picket near Bunker Hill, Va. The congress of the Confederate states passed a bill making it the duty of every commanding officer in the Confederate army to destroy, cotton and tobacco when there was danger of its falling into the hands of the enemy. A clause providing for the compensation of the owner of the property destroyed was stricken out Citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, met to organize a market for the free distribution of necessaries to the families of soldiers, during the war. A squadron of the First Michigan cavalry surprised and dispersed a small company of Confederate Cavalry at Berryville, Va. March 7, 1882. In the English House of Commons, Mr. Gregory called the attention Of the house to the blockade of the southern ports, and moved for a copy of all correspondence on the subject, 'subsequent to the papers already before the house. He'expressed his strong sympathies for the struggle going forward in lbe Confederate states, and declared that a separation of the south from the north and a reconstruction of the Union were the only means by which they oould hope to see slavery abolished.

The Confederate steamer Sumter, to; Gibraltar, was being watched by the United States gunboat Tuscarora. The United States gunboats Free born. Satellite, Island Belle, and Reto lute engaged Confederate shore batter les In the Potomac from Liverpool Point to Boyd’s Hole, Including three at Acquia creek. In the afternoon the Island Belle and the Satellite a brush with two batteries at Wade’s Bay, where they fired on a trainload of Confederate Infantry. Gov. Andrew Johnson left Washington with his staff for Nashville, Tenn, to assume duties in charge of the provisional government. John Park, mayor of Memphis, In a proclamation to the citizens of the town, who had been In alarm lest their town be destroyed by Incendiaries, reassured them with a threat that he would hang to the first lamp post any man who should be detected in the act of firing a building. The Richmond Examiner called upon all patriotic southerners to turn over to the government their shot guns for use against the northern Invaders. March 8, 1862. The battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, was ended after three days’ fighting. The Union forces under the command of Gen. Curtis, eventually prevailed over the Confederates, under Gen. Ben McCulloch. On March 6 the Confederates commenced the attack on Curtis’s right wing, driving up a detachment of Gen. Sigel’s rear guard to the main Union lines at Sugar Creek Hollow. The Confederates desisted at four In the afternoon. During the night Gen. Curtis, discovering that the Confederates were in position to attack by the flank and rear, changed front. Throughout the second day the fight raged without advantage of importance to either side, with the exception of the loss of Gen. McCulloch In the afternoon. On the third morning Gen. Curtis made another change of front. In the fighting which soon developed Gen. Sigel dislodged the Confederates, from their hills at the head of the Sugar Creek Gulch, and the Confederates retreated. Morgan’s Confederate cavalry made off with a National foraging train in charge of the Fourth Ohio Cavalry near Nashville, Tennessee, but the wagons were subsequently retaken by the Fourth Cavalry and a battery of artillery. The Confederate force that had been stationed near Occoquan, Virginia, and which had given Federal reconnaissance parties many a brush, withdrew from the position and fell back behind the Rappahannock. March 9, 1862. The entire north, and especially the Atlantic sea board, greeted the day in a panic of anxiety and despair. Early on the preceding afternoon a Confederate ironclad of new and monstrous power had played such havoc with the Union fleet in Hampton Roads, that no one held any hope that she could be stopped in her marine depredations by anything afloat or ashore. The craft, which was the old frigate Merrimac remodelled and sheathed heavily in railroad Iron, came steaming out of Norfolk Harbor early in the afternoon and blundered against the Cumberland and Congress, United States sailing frigates. Without paying the least attention to the balls that the Cumberland bounced against her iron side the Merrimac steered directly into her and opened her side with a blow amidships. Twice the new monster rammed the helpless frigate. Having done for the Cumberland, the Merrimac started for'the Congress, which discretely surrendered and was later fired. The Minnesota, endeavoring to get into the action, went aground, nnd was only saved by the fall of night. The Merrimac waited about for the morrow. At ten o’clock that night Ericsson’s Monitor arrived In Hampton Roads. When the men on the Merrlmao awoke to renew the attack they found the Yankee cheese box disputing the way. The fight was long and furious. Neither vessel was able to do any damage to the other. The Merrimac retired at noon, and the nation at the north breathed the first relief they had had for nearly twenty-four hours.

March 10,1862. Lieut J. D. Joak, of the First lowa cavalry, with thirty men, encountered a band of Confederates hidden in a log house and was severely treated by them before'he succeeded in dlslodging them. The U. S. Gunboat Whitehall, lying in Hampton Roads, took fire at three o’clock in the morning and was totally destroyed. The Whitehall had been a Fulton Ferry boat in New York. The Joint resolution suggested by President Lincoln offering aid to any state that should desire to accomplish gradual liberation of slaves met with disaster in the United States senate. Introduced by Mr. Wilson of Massachusetts, it was objected to by Mr. Saulsbury of Delaware. Maryland and Delaware were specifically mentioned in the resolution. Mr. Borwing of Illinois spoke against the conflsca-. tion bin. The house bill providing a new article of w&r, prohibiting officers of the army from returning fugitive slaves, was passed. . The National forces entered and occupied what was left of Centerville. Virginia, which had been devastated and deserted by the Confederates. Brunswick, Georgia, was also occupied by Union soldiers. Col. James Carter, with a regiment Of Tennesseans organized to fight tor the Union cause, attacked a body of Confederate cavalry at Big Creek Gap, defeating them after a sharp fight Fifty-nine Confederates were captured, many of them neighbors of their captors. (Copyright MU by a Chapman.)