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e outbreak proved to have been made up of the very worst description of powder; so much so, that after the second discharge our muskets were so dirty as to become almost unserviceable. The quartermaster's and commissary departments, also, were in great confusion, and the service far from efficient. Although the country abounded in corn-meal, bacon, flour, etc., it was evident our stores could not last for ever, as the two last-named articles were chiefly (and perhaps solely) to be found North. We were rich in cotton, sugar, tobacco, rice, hemp, etc., but these were not commissary stores, or absolute necessaries, and as we did not produce any other, and were not in any sense a manufacturing people, we found the whole North ridiculing us and our preparations for conquering our independence. Indeed, their common taunt was, How can you live without us? Why, we will starve you into submission. At the outset, however, President Davis and his military advisers had foreseen, and pro
d little else to do but sally forth, and pick up small parties of prisoners endeavoring to make their way to the river. All description of this memorable defeat of the enemy under Banks must fall short of the reality. Such sights I never expected to behold in the whole course of my existence. The confusion, rout, noise, destruction, incessant discharge of arms, the utter prostration and consternation of the enemy, were appalling, and although I know nothing of this kind will ever be heard North, and that the Federal leaders will speak lightly of the facts; The following Northern items regarding these events will not be uninteresting, as illustrative of their feeling and exaggeration of truth, namely: Washington, May 26th. We have passed a very exciting day in Washington. The intelligence received last evening to the effect that General Banks had fallen back from Strasburgh to Winchester, was understood to indicate rather a precautionary measure on his part, than the res
ur coast for harbors and arsenals were never looked into; lighthouses, breakwaters, and repairs were never considered; we had no right to suppose that dockyards and the like should be placed South, for these things might eventually increase our prosperity, and that must not be! Then, again, territories were crowded by Northern immigration, so that the political balance should always remain with them; railroads could not be constructed South to the Pacific-better routes were always found North, and when private enterprise was excited to compete, Government appropriations were always made to Northern speculators. Even the routes of our commonest products were always directed Northward for exportation and trade, and for many years there seemed to be a settled plan with Northerners to favor all that pertained to themselves, and ignore our commonest rights and interests. The results are, that the tide of emigration has always been guided North. The army and navy establishments were
Robert Underwood Johnson, Clarence Clough Buell, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: The Opening Battles. Volume 1., The Union and Confederate navies. (search)
depended almost wholly upon Europe for sea-going cruisers. These were not privateers, however, but commissioned ships-of-war of the Confederacy. Captain James D. Bulloch resided in England as the Confederate naval agent, and his skill and enterprise resulted in the acquisition of the Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Shenandoah, all of which made successful commerce-destroying cruises. Attempts to secure other vessels, including the Alexandra, the Pampero, the iron-clad contracted for by Captain North on the Clyde, and the two armored rams built by the Messrs. Laird, failed through the intervention of the British Government. Of the six vessels built in France, including four corvettes and two iron-clads, only one of the latter, Stonewall, passed into the hands of the Confederates, and this was acquired so late in the war as to be of no value. In its personnel, the Confederate navy was more fortunate than in its vessels. The Secretary was Stephen R. Mallory [see p. 106], who had
Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, The campaign in Georgia-Sherman's March to the sea-war anecdotes-the March on Savannah- investment of Savannah-capture of Savannah (search)
f I could give him anything that he could say to the loyal people that would comfort them. I told him there was not the slightest occasion for alarm; that with 60,000 such men as Sherman had with him, such a commanding officer as he was could not be cut off in the open country. He might possibly be prevented from reaching the point he had started out to reach, but he would get through somewhere and would finally get to his chosen destination: and even if worst came to worst he could return North. I heard afterwards of Mr. Lincoln's saying, to those who would inquire of him as to what he thought about the safety of Sherman's army, that Sherman was all right: Grant says they are safe with such a general, and that if they cannot get out where they want to, they can crawl back by the hole they went in at. While at Milledgeville the soldiers met at the State House, organized a legislature, and proceeded to business precisely as if they were the legislative body belonging to the Stat
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment, Chapter 5: out on picket. (search)
gotiate through me or my officers,--a refusal which was kept up, greatly to the enemy's inconvenience, until our men finally captured some of the opposing pickets, and their friends had to waive all scruples in order to send them supplies. After this there was no trouble, and I think that the first Rebel officer in South Carolina who officially met any officer of colored troops under a flag of truce was Captain John C. Calhoun. In Florida we had been so recognized long before; but that was when they wished to frighten us out of Jacksonville. Such was our life on picket at Port Royal,--a thing whose memory is now fast melting into such stuff as dreams are made of. We stayed there more than two months at that time; the first attack on Charleston exploded with one puff, and had its end; General Hunter was ordered North, and the busy Gilmore reigned in his stead; and in June, when the blackberries were all eaten, we were summoned, nothing loath, to other scenes and encampments new.
Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas, Debates of Lincoln and Douglas: Carefully Prepared by the Reporters of Each Party at the times of their Delivery., Sixth joint debate, at Quincy, October 13, 1858. (search)
justify me in saying that he has a fertile genius in devising language to conceal his thoughts. I ask you whether there is an intelligent man in America who does not believe, that that answer was made for the purpose of concealing what he intended to do. He wished to make the old line Whigs believe that he would and by the Compromise measures of 1850, which declared that the States might come into the Union with slavery, or without, as they pleased, while Lovejoy and his Abolition allies up North, explained to the Abolitionists, that in taking this ground he preached good Abolition doctrine, because his proviso would not apply to any territory in America, and therefore there was no chance of his being governed by it. It would have been quite easy for him to have said, that he would let, the people of a State do just as they pleased, if he desired to convey such an idea. Why did he not do it? He would not answer my question directly, because up north, the Abolition creed declares t
t happily the delights of a life on the circuit. A bit of it, referring to Lincoln, I apprehend, cannot be deemed out of place here. In October, 1854, Abraham Lincoln, he relates, drove into our town (Urbana) to attend court. He had the appearance of a rough, intelligent farmer, and his rude, homemade buggy and raw-boned horse enforced this belief. I had met him for the first time in June of the same year. David Davis and Leonard Swett had just preceded him. The next morning he started North, on the Illinois Central Railroad, and as he went in an old omnibus he played on a boy's harp all the way to the depot. I used to attend the Danville court, and while there, usually roomed with Lincoln and Davis. We stopped at McCormick's hotel, an old-fashioned frame country tavern. Jurors, counsel, prisoners, everybody ate at a long table. The judge, Lincoln, and I had the ladies' parlor fitted up with two beds. Lincoln, Swett, McWilliams, of Bloomington, Voorhees, of Covington, Ind.,
Varina Davis, Jefferson Davis: Ex-President of the Confederate States of America, A Memoir by his Wife, Volume 2, Chapter 45: exchange of prisoners and Andersonville. (search)
scissors, etc., and to send a train with these articles for the use of the United States prisoners of war held by Hood. And again, Major-General Thomas, commanding Department of the Cumberland, on December 5, 1864, wrote to General Hood, acknowledged the receipt of General Hood's letter of same date, proposing the exchange of prisoners, and declined. General Thomas's assigned reason was: Although I have had quite a large number of prisoners from your army, they have all been sent back North, and are consequently now beyond my control; I am therefore unable to make the exchange proposed by you. Finding, wrote Mr. Davis, that exchanges could not be made, we offered their sick and wounded without any equivalents. Although the offer was made in the summer, the transportation did not arrive until November, and the most emaciated of the poor prisoners were then photographed and exhibited to fire the Northern heart. One final effort was made to obtain an exchange. Mr. Davis s
ir ordnance officers of that name. They also say that but few guns, little ammunition, and little of any of the material of war come to them from foreign sources, as they are able to manufacture for themselves. They speak of a lack of some of the necessaries of life through the Confederacy, and of the high prices of all articles. One of them, showing a confederate one dollar bill, made the remark: It takes six of them to get a dollar in gold. The James Adger has been ordered to take them North, we understand. I send a list of the officers: Commander — William A. Webb, of Virginia. First Lieutenant and Executive Officer — J. W. Alexander, of North--Carolina. Second Lieutenant (for the war)--Alphonso Barbot, of Louisiana. Third Lieutenant--J. H. Arledge, of Florida. Surgeon — R. J. Truman, of Virginia. Assistant Surgeon--R. R. Gibbes, of South--Carolina. Lieutenant Marines-R. G. Thurston, of South--Carolina, wounded. Paymaster — W. B. Nicon, of Virginia.
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