The intelligence from
Tennessee is very misty.
The
commanding General there has very properly embargoed all intelligence relative to the military movements going on in that State.
On the 3d inst.,
Gen. Forrest gave the enemy a severe drubbing at
Kingston, killing and wounding a large number of them.
Kingston is a small county town, located upon the banks of the
Tennessee and
Clinch rivers, eighteen miles below
Loudon.
Gen. Forrest commenced crossing his command by ferry boats over the
Tennessee river.
While crossing over with the last detachment, the ferry boat sunk, drowning ten men. The remainder swam ashore.
The following from the
Marietta Confederate will show how the enemy is prosecuting hostilities in
Tennessee:
The
Yankees occupied
Winchester on the 3d of July, celebrated the 4th, and issued a number of the
Winchester Daily Bulletin on that day, taunting the editor and proprietor,
Mr. Slatter, with supplying his place in his absence.
Gen. McCook occupied the residence of Mark
Henderson as his headquarters, and
Gen. Jeff. C. Davis (who killed
Bull Nelson, the
Kentucky Yankee General, last year,) occupied the residence of
Harrison T. Carr, a member of the last Tennessee Legislator.
They put guards around the houses in town, and a few of them were robbed.
But they gave leave to their troops to wander up and down the country like devils, seeking what they might devour.
The consequence was that they carried on a system of general plunder, taking meat, meal, flour, and other provisions from all but the very poor, leaving nothing to eat, and making a large majority of the people wholly dependent on the enemy for rations, which were doled out to them for three days at a time.
They went to old
Captain Taylor's, who is about ninety years old, and his son's,
W. E. Taylor, formerly Clerk of the
County Court, both of them regarded as rich men, and so completely robbed them that they had to subsist on boiled corn for more than a week, when they got a day's rations of meat and flour from a Yankee soldier, who took pity on them.
A brigade of troops was sent to the farm of
A. Shook, a substantial citizen of seventy odd years, under the guidance of one of his negroes, and three regiments spent the day there.
They took all the provisions, not leaving half a gallon of meal for the old man and the family of his son,
O. S. Shook, who had been in the First Tennessee regiment in
Virginia.
They killed every hog, sheep, and calf that they could find, took five negro men — all he had — and three of them were armed, uniformed, and put in the
Yankee service.
They stole
Mrs. S. Shook's watch and jewelry, and afterwards a guard was put over her room.
Mrs. Shook went to town to draw rations.
The
Provost Marshal was disposed to be courteous, but said she must go to
General Davis.
She went to
Davis's quarters, and his Adjutant or Clerk repeated the name; "Shook!
Shook!"--when
Davis said, "All rebels; and you, madam, are as d — n a rebel as any." "Yes," said she, "and always will be."
Davis said, "You can't get any rations."
Mrs. S., "Do you intend me and my children to starve?
You have stolen all my meat and everything else to eat." He replied, "I don't care a d — n if you and your children do starve." He seemed familiar with the people's names, and called the names of all the men in the Shook family — the father and sons--one of whom was the
Confederate Postmaster at
Winchester, another in
Starnes's cavalry, and the third, a lawyer, had been in the First regiment, as already stated.
It is said that so sweeping has been the pillaging and desolation, that not a shock of wheat has been left in the country, and they were cutting the green corn; and there are no vegetables, and not a sitting, hen, goose, or other fowl.
Notwithstanding this barbarous treatment, the spirits of the people are not broken, but they are still defiant and opposed to reconstruction of the old Union hulk.
The Yankee papers say that they have no friends in
Franklin county, and complain that the ladies won't receive them in their parlors, saying that, if they would do so, they would find them a jovial set of fellows.
Notwithstanding the occupation of
Franklin county by the
Yankees, an election for members of the Legislature was held there on the 6th of August, the polls being opened within seven miles of
Winchester, and
John G. Enochs was elected
Senator for
Lincoln and
Franklin, and
Jas. K. Shook, Representative for
Franklin, and certificates of election were awarded them.
A correspondent of the Charleston
Mercury, writing from
Charleston, Tenn., on the 3d inst., says:
‘
Our trains now run no further than
Loudon, where the railroad crosses the
Tennessee, and which is thirty miles from
Knoxville.
Yesterday the enemy appeared at
London, on the opposite bank, and shelled the place.
Our batteries responded, and our people burned the railroad bridge over the
Tennessee.
This is a vast and splendid structure, worth a million of dollars.
Its destruction, alone, will cause the loss of the use of this railroad for many weeks.
The guns used must have been heavy ones, for I heard the cannonade at this place, though forty miles distant.
’
Yesterday and to-day this little village has been the scene of grand and moving sights.
For thirty-six hours past, night and day, there has been a continuous stream of wagons, long lines of infantry, leagues of cavalry and their diminutive batteries of artillery.
Thousands and tens of thousands of soldiers tramp, gallop, and hang about the streets; staff officers, couriers, orderlies, dash about on horseback; dust-covered dragoons lope along the streets, enveloped and obscured in the heavy clouds of impalpable dust; the entire village of
Charleston is covered with great clouds of dust that envelope it like a heavy fog; dozens of locomotives are screaming and screeching, and long trains of cars speed down the road with tons of army stores; now and then a carriage load of fugitive ladies and children passes through to a place of refuge from Yankee outrage.
This morning I saw and conversed with the remnant of "
Morgan's men," who escaped in the late raid.
They are several hundreds, and splendidly mounted, armed and equipped.
They are, indeed, almost the only cavalry in this army that ever fights with any spirit or success.
The enemy is reported in heavy force on the opposite bank of the river and as concentrating opposite this point, near the mouth of the
Hiwassee.
I can hardly believe that he will take the hazards of crossing the river, but he must do either this of retreat.
He cannot long feed his army where it is, and to retreat would be a disgraceful and humiliating failure.
If he crosses, he comes to almost certain defeat and ruin; but he may be so blinded and flushed by recent victories as to rush thus madly on to destruction.
Ten days will be sufficient for both armies to get themselves together and to develop their plans.
And then, I suppose, comes "the tug of war."
