From North Alabama.
Federal outrages — Tyranny of the Commanding officer--arrests, &c.The Knoxville Register obtains the following statement from gentlemen who left the vicinity of Huntsville, Alabama, a few days ago. According to this account, General Mitchell is winning a reputation for infirmly only surpassed by that of B. F. Butler in New Orleans: On the arrival of the Federal in Huntsville. Mitchell sent for the Mayor, told him that he must have food for his men about 000. Mayor Coltart replied that he would consult some of the citizens. Mitchell told him that he would give him to understand he was master, and the food must be provided or it would be taken from the citizens. To prevent outrages on individual citizen the Mayor provided food at municipal expense. Sunday private citizens were expected, the first day, and afterwards, without knowing why they were singled out from others who were as much or more in ‘"the rebel"’ category than themselves, and it is presumed they were pointed out by stories in town. This presumption was confirmed by the fact that squabble of Federal showed an allowed an extraordinary knowledge of localities by the fertility with which they found their way to house in which Confederate soldiers were or had been staying. Our informant report that Mitchell appears to take a malicious pleasure in petty annoyances, as well as grosser outrages upon the people. If he sees half a dozen or more citizens together, he will, in the most haughty five dangerous with property out, ‘"Disperse you d — d rebels!"’--knowing well that the balls and bayonets of the Myrmidons who back him give him immunity from the penalties due his cowardly insolence, and which outraged freshmen would visit upon him if they were unshackled. The citizens of the town and county have been robbed of bacon, beeves, poultry, corn, fodder, flour, groceries, horses, mules — in short, everything that will replenish the exhausted quartermaster and commissary stores. In some instances they make a pretence to remunerate owners by giving them receipts for the property taken, specifying their own arbitrary unremunerative prices, and telling the owners to present the receipt to the quartermaster, and, when presented, the owner is required to take the oath of allegiance, and if he refuses, payment is refused. Sometimes Federal scouts will take part of a man's bacon, provender, or other property, and take an inventory of the balance, and if the balance is not forthcoming when called for, the vandals will wantonly destroy almost everything that they can lay their hands on, and perhaps arrest the owner and hold him a prisoner for one or more days, and then release him on parole not to leave certain prison bounds. The Confederate Marshal, Gen. Ben. Pattyson, and his family, left his residence near the city on the approach of the Hessians, and they destroyed his doors, windows, piano, furniture, &c., and rattles off his corn, fodder, and everything they could make useful. They robbed the grocery store of McCreary, Patton & Sprague, of about $12,000 worth of groceries, and appropriated the house as a sutler's store. They robbed the other grocery stores in like manner, with the exception of one Wm. H. Powers, a Yankee, and they paid him for all they got. The Federal are greatly incensed by citizens of the country burning bridges, cutting telegraph wires, shooting scouts and pickets, and firing into railroad trains; and prominent citizens, in every neighborhood where such things occur, are arrested, taken to Huntsville, and imprisoned in the court-house, or in law offices, &c., for such time as the caprice of the General or his Provost may direct, and then paroled. Numbers of citizens are thus treated without any apparent reason. When our informants left, some dozen citizens of the town and thirty odd citizens of the county were confined. Among the prominent citizens who have thus suffered, we remember the names of Ex-Gov Clay, Ex-Gov. Reuben Chapman, D. Thomas Fearn, Geo P. Beirne, and Rev. J. G. Wilson--though nearly every man of any prominence has, at some time or other, experienced this petty despotism. Ex-Gov. City, who is over seventy years of age and infirm, was ruthlessly taken from his plantation, in Jackson county, twenty miles from Huntsville, carried to town, confined two or three days and released on parole to remain in the city limits; the alleged Owned for this treatment being had fired on a railroad train containing Federal soldiers and on a railroad bridge guard, a few mile distant from his plantation. For the same alleged offences however, they burnt the small village of Camden or Pain Rock, which should have sufficed to satiate their fire. The villages of Woodville and Scottsboro', in Jackson co., on the railroad, were destroyed in like manner, and Mitchell made a speech at Woodville in which he threatened to burn every house within ten miles, if bridge-burning and bushwhacking did not cease, and he would hang every bushwhacker be caught. At this announcement, a fellow in a hollow at a safe distance, not having the fear of King Abraham, or his august military representative, before his eyes cried out: ‘"The h--11 you say."’ The threats have been practically disregarded. Ex-Governor Chapman was taken from his residence two miles from town, confined in town several days, and then returned home on parole, and is kept there under guard. He was an original and decided secessionist, but his special offence was, probably, that General L. Pope Walker and family were his guests when Huntsville was taken. * * * * * * Nearly all of the citizens of Huntsville remained true to themselves and their country. The outrages committed on the strong Secessionists had intensified their disunionism and their hatred of the mongrel crew who assail their rights and seek their subjugation — and the hitherto lukewarm were wrought up to a pitch of indignation that only awaits opportunity to rival the most zealous and uncompromising. Some who were 'half and' half — almost, if not quite, Union men — have suffered as much as the most intense disunionist, and, through much tribulation have reached the conclusion that in disunion alone, permanent and irrevocable, is there any hope of Southern freedom. A few — half a dozen to a dozen, at most — have demonstrated beyond all question their disloyalty and treason to the South. The most prominent of them are Hone.(?) Jere Clemens and George W. Lane.
