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Seizure of a Federal steamer by Confederate
The Washington Chronicle gives the following account of the escape of ninety Confederate officers from the horrors of Fort Delaware: ‘ On Wednesday last, the steamer Maple Leaf, Capt. Wm. H. Deal, left Old Point for Fort Delaware, having on board ninety Confederates, all commissioned officers, who, it is understood, were not to be exchanged for the present. Everything went on quietly until the steamer was just beyond Cape Henry Light, when the prisoners gradually approached the guard, only twelve in number, and suddenly disarmed them, placing them and the officers and crew under close arrest, and would not permit them to see in what direction the vessel was steaming. After proceeding about 45 miles beyond Cape Henry the steamer was run in near the Virginia shore, where all but twenty-six landed in the yawl boats of the Leaf. They piloted the steamer themselves and attended to the fire-room and engine. It is said that the musket of the guard were without bayonets and unloaded, and each man was seized by four of the Confederates, thus rendering resistance useless. During their possession of the best they refrained from doing any damage to the steamer, and treated the officers and crew with civility. The ringleaders in the party were a son of Semmes, of the Alabama, and a man named McGowan, of Texas. The entire party were mostly from the extreme Southern States, were all dressed in new and handsome uniforms, and seemed to be in possession of a considerable amount of money. Soon as the party had effected a landing, Capt. Deal resumed the command of the steamer, when she put back immediately to report to Gen. Dix. The facts were made known to the General, who instantly ordered out a strong detachment of Col. Pierce's cavalry, and it was thought they would be able to overtake the party before they could get beyond the Federal lines. ’The fighting at Milliken's Bend — Kirby
A dispatch from Cairo, dated the 12th inst, says: ‘ In the fight at Milliken's Bend, on Saturday, our force was less than 1,000, over 600 of whom were negroes. The rebels at first drove our forces some distance, nearly surrounding them. The fight was conducted with energy and desperation by our forces, and the rebels were held at bay until a gunboat came to assist us. Eye witnesses report that our loss in killed was 134, 100 of whom were negroes. The wounded is about the same number. The list of killed is very large, in consequence of many wounded being killed under the no quarter cry. The rebels left 100 dead on the field, and took a way several wagon loads of wounded. The negroes fought better than their white officers, many of whom, it is said, skulked. --About the time the battle was over, a column of rebels made their appearance at Young's Point — all the citizens and transient persons having been put under arms. No attack had been made when our informant left. ’ Memphis, June 12th.--The steamer Fort Wayne arrived up to day. There are no later dates than the 8th. No guerillas were seen on the way up. The fight at Milliken's Bend, on Monday last, was a sanguinary affair, and much larger than at first reported. The rebels were under McCullough, 2,500 strong. The Federal force was three negro regiments and the 23d Iowa. The rebels made a desperate charge at daylight. The negroes broke in confusion, but finding their captured companions slaughtered, rallied with great desperation, and drove the rebels back. The loss was heavy on both sides. The guerillas destroyed portions of the railroad track near Germantown last night. The damage was slight, and soon repaired. The rebel forces in Northern Mississippi have all been sent to Johnston.The Yankee Mode of carrying on the war
The Yankee War Department has officially proclaimed the instructions in the government of the armies of the United States in the field, prepared by Francis Lieber, Ll. D., and revised by a board of officers, of which Major General E. A. Hitchcock was President. Having been approved by the President of the United States, he commands that they be published. Among other things the instructions set forth that a place, district, or country, occupied by an enemy, stands, in consequence of the occupation, under the martial law of the invading or occupying armies, whether any proclamation declaring martial law, or any public warning has been issued to the inhabitants or not. Martial law is the effect and consequence of occupation or conquest. Martial law is simply military authority, exercised in accordance with the laws and usages of war. Military oppression is not martial law; it is the abuse of the power which that law confers. As martial law is executed by military force it is incumbent upon those who administer it to be strictly guided by the principles of justice, honor and humanity — virtues adorning a soldier even more than other men, for the very reason that he possesses the power of his arms against the unarmed. Consuls, among American and European nations, are not diplomatic agents. Nevertheless, their offices and persons will be subject to martial law in cases of urgent necessity only; their property and business are not exempted. Any delinquency they commit against the established military rule may be punished as in the case of any other inhabitant, and such punishment furnishes no reasonable ground for international complaint. The more vigorously wars are pursued, the better it is for humanity. Sharp wars are brief. The instructions also treat of the appropriation, by a victorious army, of the public and private property of the enemy — protection of persons, especially women, of religion, the arts and sciences, and punishment of crimes against the inhabitants of hostile countries, &c. There exists no law or body of authoritative rules of action between hostile armies except the branch of the law of nature and of nations, which is called the law and usages of war on the land. Slavery, complicating and confounding the ideas of property (that is, of a thing) and of personality, (that is, of humanity,) exist according to municipal or local law only. The law of nature and nations has never acknowledged it. The digest of the Roman law enacts the early dictum of the Pagan Jurist, that, "so far as the law of nature is concerned, all men are equal." Fugitives escaping from a country in which they, were slaves, villains, or serfs, into another country, have, for centuries past, been held free and acknowledged free by judicial decisions of European countries, even though the municipal laws of the country in which the slave had taken refuge acknowledged slavery within its own dominions. Therefore, in a war between the United States and a belligerent which admits of slavery, if a person held in bondage by that belligerent be captured by or come as a fugitive under the protection of the military forces of the United Stated, such person is immediately entitled to the rights and privileges of a freeman. To return such person into slavery would amount to enslaving a free person, and neither the United States or any officer under their authority can enslave any human being. Moreover, a person, if made free by the laws of war, is under the shield of the laws of nations, and the former owner or State can have, by the law of post limine, no belligerent lies or claim of service. A traitor, under the law of war, or a war traitor, is a person in a place or distinct under martial law, who, unauthorized by the military commander, gives information of any kind to the enemy, or holds intercourse with him. The war traitor is always severely punished if his offence consists in betraying to the enemy anything concerning the condition, safety, operations, or plans of the troops holding or occupying the place or district, his punishment is death. If the citizen or subject of a country or place invaded or conquered gave information to his own Government, from which he is separated by the hostile army, or the army of his Government, he is a war traitor, and death is the penalty of his offence. All armies in the field stand in need of guides, and impress them, if they cannot obtain them otherwise. No person having been forced by the enemy to serve as a guide is punishable for having done so. If a citizen of a hostile and invaded district voluntarily serve as a guide to the enemy, or offers to do so, he is deemed a war traitor, and shall suffer death. A citizen serving voluntarily as a guide against his own country commits treason, and will be dealt with according to the law of his own country. Guides, when it is clearly proved that they have misled intentionally, may be put to death. All authorized or secret communication with the enemy is considered treasonable by the law of war. Under the head of "Insurrection, civil War, Rebellion," the instructions say "armed or unarmed resistance by citizens of the United States against the lawful movement of their troops is levying war against the United States, and is therefore treason."Yankee Opinions of the Bravery of their
The Philadelphia North American, which is kept alive by Government pap, contained on Saturday last the following libel upon our troops: ‘ We have very much yet to learn. The bayonet, of which so much has been said, has proved, in fact, almost a nullity in the war. Our troops can neither be got to use it or to stand against it. In many actions they have obeyed orders to charge, and done it well; but in all such cases the enemy has never stood the charge. At the point of the bayonet we have done very little actual fighting. All the successes of "Stonewall" Jackson were achieved by bayonet charges, which our men have refused to await and receive. Very much of what is written about desperate bayonet charges, and hand-to-hand fighting between the contending ranks, is pure romance, as the surgeons on both sides have repeatedly proved. Yet the use of the bayonet is what we ought to learn, and must learn if we hope for permanent military superiority. ’ But bad as this is, hear what an exchanged Massachusetts officer who was taken prisoner on the Rappahannock says of our soldiers: ‘ Doubtless a great many reasons are given for our most disgraceful and disastrous defeat at Chancellorsville. There is only one real reason, and that the simplest possible. Our army didn't fight as well as that of our enemies. We had every possible advantage. Our numbers more than doubled theirs, till Longstreet's reinforcements came up, which didn't then bring their forces up to 100,000 to oppose our 130,000. Indeed, it would now seem that Longstreet didn't come up at all. We had the advantage of position and no inconsiderable amount of entrenchment. Gen Hooker's plan was admirably arranged and excellently carried out, until the fighting took place. He exposed himself in the hottest place of danger and set an electrifying example of heroism to the whole army. The terrible loss of life among our Generals shows that on the whole they were not found wanting at their posts of duty. We had men enough, well enough equipped and well enough posted, to have devoured the ragged, imperfectly armed and equipped host of our enemies from off the face of the earth. Their artillery horses are poor, starved frames of beasts, tied on to their carriages and caissons with odds and ends of rope and strips of raw hide. Their supply and ammunition trains look like a congregation of all the crippled California emigrant trains that ever escaped off the desert out of the clutches of the rampaging Comanche Indians. The men are ill dressed, ill equipped, and ill provided, a set of ragamuffins that a man is ashamed to be seen among, even when he is a prisoner and can't help it. And yet they have beaten us fairly, beaten us all to pieces, beaten us so easily that we are objects of contempt even to their commonest private soldiers, with no shirts to hang out of the holes in their pantaloons, and cartridge boxes tied round their waists with strands of ropes. I say they beat us easily, for there hasn't been much of a fight up here on the bank of the Rappahannock after all, the newspapers to the contrary notwithstanding. There was an awful noise, for I heard it. There was a tremendous amount of powder exploded, for I saw the smoke of it ascend up to heaven. There was a vast amount of running done "faced by the rear rank," but I cannot learn that there was in any part of the field very much real fighting. ’ This same officer, says the New York World, has a good deal more to say to the same effect, and we hope his statement will be republished in every New England journal. The intolerable conceit of that section of the Union, and the teachings of its abolition pulpit, press and orators have led its people to despise the South as semi-barbarous and degenerate because of slavery. Statements like the above by Massachusetts men in Massachusetts newspapers will rudely dispel the illusions of years as to the inferiority of the Southern people and the superior morale of the sons of New England.
The Daily Dispatch: June 16, 1863. Richmond Dispatch. 2 pages. by Cowardin & Hammersley. Richmond. June 16, 1863. microfilm. Ann Arbor, Mi : Proquest. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm.
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