Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 54, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1913 — The CIVIL WAR FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK [ARTICLE]

The CIVIL WAR FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK

February 24, 1863. The United States steamer Indianola, under command of Lieut. George Brown, was captured in the Mississippi river near Grand Gulf, after an engagement lasting an hour and a half, by the Confederate ironclad steamers Queen of the West'and William H. Webb, and two armed steamers, ==- The steamer Hetty* Gilmore was captured and destroyed by Confederates under W. C. P. Breckinridge, near Woodbury, Tenn. The Savannah News said: “There seems to be now a great rage for investing in Confederate bonds. Everybody is buying bonds —that is, everybody who has treasury notes wherewith to buy. How great the contrast! 'Here our people are seeking Confederate paper. In Lineolndom everybody is avoiding government paper, and paying enormous prices for every article which will enable them to get rid of Yankee promises to pay! This is one of the best signs'of the times.” At Richmond, Va., Judge Meredith cf the circuit court decided in habeas corpus proceedings that every citizen in Maryland and every foreigner who had enlisted in the Confederate army, no matter for how short a period, had acquired a domicile, and therefore was liable to conscription between the ages of eighteen and forty-flve. ' Congress formed the territory of Arizona by dividing New Mexico. Commander Porter sent a “dummy” gunboat past the Vicksburg batteries, which so alarmed the Confederates that they destroyed the Queen of the West and the Indianola, which they :had lately taken from the Federate. February 25, 1863. The act for the enrolling and calling, out of the National forces, and for other purposes, passed the house of representatives by a vote of 115 to 59. It had already passed the senate. Stuart’s Confederate cavalry was defeated in a brush with the Union cavalry of General Averill near Hartwood church, Virginia. The Confederates, ignorant of the preponderating force of the Union cavalry, made the attack, but were driven off, and pursued as far at Kelly’s Ford. An expedition, consisting of a force of Union troops, under the command of General Rose, left Moon lake on board several steamers and proceeded up Yazoo Pass. The Confederates under Cluke, who bad been raiding in Kentucky, were overtaken and dispersed by a heavy Union force near Licktown. The British steamer Peterhoff was captured off St. Thomas, West Indies, by the United States gunboat Vanderbilt, and sent to Key West, Fla., for adjudication. The bakers in Charleston, S. C., advanced 1 the price of bread to twentyfive cents for a half pound loaf. Flour sold at sixty-five dollars a barrel. The National Bank bill became a law through the approval by President Lincoln. Filbusters in the house of representatives defeated the bill providing for compensated emancipation in Missouri. / February 26, 1863.

Two hundred men of the Thirteenth i Pennsylvania and First New York cavalry were captured near Wood* stock, Va. They were* part of a detachment that had gone in pursuit of a body of Confederate cavalry that came Inside the National pickets on the Strasburg road the day before, and captured twelve pickets, after a skirmish. The Union ca.valry, following, came up with the Confederate raiding party, and took many of them, but, proceeding too far, they were in turn attacked and overwhelmed. The National council of the Cherokee natloq rescinded Its ordinance of secession and declared loyalty to the United States. The yacht Anna was captured In the Suwanee river, Georgia, by the National steamer Fort Henry. A freight train on the Louisville & Nashville railroad, laden with merchandise belonging to individuals, a quantity of government stores, and two hundred and fifty mules, was captured near Woodburn, Tenn., by Confederate partisans. After driving off the mules and rifling the cars of their contents, they set fire to them and totally destroyed them. That done, they got up steam on the locomotive and started It at full speed up the track, hoping It would encounter the passenger train from Nashville. The locomotive passed a number of stations at high speed, but finally came to a stop, Its steam having become exhausted, without doing any harm. February 27, 1883. Jefferson Davis issued a proclamation to the people of the states in rebellion, appointing the twenty-sev-enth of March as a day of fasting and prayer. Gen. John Cochrane resigned his command In the United States army of the Potomac, and issued a farewell address to the soldiers of his brigade. A skirmish took place at a point fifteen miles from Newburn, N. C., between a detachment of Mix’s New York cavalry, under the command of

Captain Jacobs, and a strong reconnoitering party of Confederate infantry, in which the later were eventually driven off. ‘February 28, 1863. ’ . Gen. Robert E. Lee, commanding the Confederate army in Virginia, Issued an order reviewing its operations for the year 1862. The armed Confederate steamer Nashville, while aground under the guns of Fort McAllister, on the Great Ogeechee river, Georgia, was destroyed by the United States monitor Montauk, under the command of CapL J. L. Worden. March 1, 1863.

A reconnoitering party of Union troops, under the command of Adjutant Poole, made a dash into Bloom* field,"Mor, early in the-morning, killed the Confederate recruiting officer, Lieutenant BrazeSu, captured the provost-marshal and twenty Confederate irregulars, a number of firearms, and a quantity of ammunition. The English steamer Queen of the Wave Stranded while endeavoring to elude* the blockading squadron in front of Georgestown, S. C. She was seized by a crew from the United States steamer Conemaugh. Fifty men of the First Vermont cavalry were surrounded and surprised by a party of Confederates at Aldie, Va. 1 A Union expeditionary force under General Stanley, out on the day’s work near Pradyville, Tenn., fell in with a body of Confederate partisans under Colonel Duke. There followed, a stubborn fight of twenty minutes, before the Confederates gave way before superior forces. March 2, 1863. <

The United States regulars in Rosecruis’s division of the Federal army asMurfreesboro had a chance to show what they were worth. Moving from their position at Murfreesboro on a foraging expedition, they encountered the enemy in considerable force near Eaglesville. The Confederates advanced through the regulars’ skirmish line, not being familiar with the rules of tactics, but were driven back by a galling fire. Making a second stand, the Southerners 7 were dislodged by technical work on the part of Colonel Shepard, commanding the regulars, and withdrew. The party brought back no forage. A party of Confederate cavalry, augmented by a band of irregulars, had an encounter with a force of loyal Tennesseeans under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Brownlow, near Petersburg, Tenn. The Confederates were persuaded to withdraw with much difficulty. Thirty of Mosby’s partisan fighters were surprised and routed by a Union cavalry force near Aldie, Va. Thirty of the Confederates were captured. Thirty-three commissioned officers were dismissed from the United States army for various offenses, charges against them having been proven in courtmartial. (Copyright, 1913, by W. G. Chapman.)