Restress of the Confederate from Knoxville-- of artillery
--
Three Thousand Barefooted
We before our readers an interesting letter from "Personnel," the army correspondent of the Charleston
Courier, who is now with
Gen. Longstreet's command.
His reference to the barefooted soldiers of the command cannot tall to elicit the sympathies of our people, and some effort should be speedily mush to furnish these gallant soldiers with shoes.
The letter is dated near
Rogersville,
East Tennessee,
Longstreet's corps, December 11. We make the allowing extracts:
‘
The failure of our troops to capture
Fort Sanders on Sunday, the 29th inst., as demitted in a former letter, necessitated a speedy change in the position of the army.
At this time
Knoxville was invested on nearly every side, and the
Federal ware restricted in their rations.
Five days more would have starved them into a surrender; but we could not wait for the event.
The enemy's cavalry were already on the line of railroad between
Knoxville and
Chickamauga.
Communication with
Gen. Bragg had been severed, and
London was threatened.
A large amount of stores accumulated at the latter point, consisting of Hour, beef, provisions, (supplied by friends at home,) boots, shoes, and clothing, were accordingly distributed to the cavalry at that point until every man was beautifully supplied.
The remainder was then destroyed by fire, which also consumed about ten bushels of letters — the accumulation of two weeks. Four valuable locomotives and a great number of box-cars, loaded with stores, were run into the river, several pieces of artillery which could not be removed mat with the same fate, and, in a word, everything was destroyed which could afford "aid and comfort" either to the enemy or ourselves.
’
On the 1st or 2d of the present month the advance of the
Federal cavalry arrived at
London.
A few hundred Tennessean, under
Gen. Vaughn and
Col. Rucker, (of
Island No.10 memory,) made a brief stand, but being overpowered by the superior numbers were compelled to retreat, and the town once more fell into Federal hands.
Our long wagon trains were now hastily set in motion, and on the night of the second moved around
Knoxville, and traveled several miles on the
Morristown turnpike, at which point they subsequently halted and awaited orders.
Burnside meanwhile was firing signal guns to notify the advancing Federal that he still remained in possession of
Knoxville, and would hold out until their arrival.
Under these circumstances nothing remained for
Gen. Longstreet to do but to quietly remove his army, and transfer his base to a point where he could threaten
Knoxville from the opposite side of the town, and establish communication with
Bristol,
Lynchburg and
Richmond.
These intentions were known to
President Davis in advance, and if I am not uninformed, his
Excellency himself advised with
Gen. Longstreet on the subject, and left to his discretion the plan of campaign to be pursued in the future.
Our intention to retreat was not unknown to the enemy at
Knoxville, and all day Thursday and Friday their pickets would frequently taunt our own with the question, "I say, reb, when do you expect to leave?" There was no attempt made, however, to obstruct our movement, with the exception of a little more industrious display of artillery venom than usual, additional fierceness and impudence on the part of the
Yankee skirmishers.
Matters remained in this condition until the night of Friday, the 4th of December. Everything movable had preceded the army in the retreat, save the most desperately wounded and sick.
These of necessity, left behind, owing remember means for their removal.
, commanding a only the name of artillery, one of the most gallant officers in the service.
Col. Kennedy,
Lieut.-Col. Rice, and
Lieut.-Col. , of the 17th Miss. regiment, all wounded, succeeded, I believe, in making their escape.
At a quarter to 10 in the evening the army left its encampment in the following order:
Hushrod Johnson in front, next
McLaws, and in rear
Jenkins.
Our skirmishers, under
Lieut.-Col. Logan, with the 5th South Carolina regiment,
Col. Coward, acting as a reserve, remained, until an early hour in the morning, and then quietly filing from the entrenchments, pursued the road taken by the main body.
The Federal were so near that we could hear every football on the frozen ground; but either the strict silence we had observed or the burning fires deceived them, and no attempt was made to follow.
Since that time until the present nothing occurred to vary the unbroken monotony of our march.
The chief difficulties of the army have been a want of food and warm clothing.
Until within a day or two we have depended on the few pigs or cattle that were impressed and driven into camp, slaughtered at night, and eaten an hour afterwards, and upon the private foraging expeditions of individuals, in which poultry and sheep have been the principal sufferers.
Quartermasters and commissaries having since rejoined their respective commands, however, we are now taring well in a gastronomic point of view, and there is no dearth of healthy rations
To one point I wish to call the attention of our people at home.
There are at this moment from three thousand to thirty-five hundred barefooted men in this army.
Some of them are officers high in rank.
One whom I know is a
Lieutenant-Colonel.
All of them are fighting men, who, but for this necessity, would be in the front rank in every hour of danger.
The weather is so cold that the icicles around the water-falls are as thick as a man's body.
In twenty minutes after sundown liquid freezes solid.
The surface of the ground is as hard as a rock, and at every step the frozen edges of earth cut into marked feet, until the path of the army may be almost said to have been tracked in blood.
To remedy the evil, I have seen these men, accustomed as they were at home to every luxury, strip their coats and blankets from backs, and tie the rags around their feet, I have seen them take the fresh hide of cattle, recking with the warm blood, and fashion therefrom rude moccasins to last them for the day's march; and I have seen them beg in terms of passing horsemen for a brief re to their painful walk, and where this has failed, offer five, ten, and twenty dollars for the privilege of riding a few miles on their wearisome journey.
I mention these as facts that have come under my own observation, and which should appeal to liberal and sympathizing hearts with all the eloquence of suffering, and call for that speedy relief which the emergency demands.
The total casualties of the campaign will not exceed twelve hundred.
Of these, probably two hundred sick and wounded have fallen into the hands of the enemy.
Heretofore the treatment of those unfortunates, when captured under circumstances of this nature, has been uniformly kind, and there is little reason to believe that it will not be equality so in the present instance.
A majority of the ladies of
Knoxville are warm Southerners, and there should be no apprehension that these noble-hearted women will prove recreant to the humane instincts and abundant sympathy which they have ever manifested in relieving the needs of suffering humanity.
The present position of the army is all that could be desired.
On the one flank we have
Clinch river and
Clinch mountain, on the other flank the
Holston river, while the whole country abounds in strong points capable of easy defence.
We are within a comparatively few miles of the
Cumberland mountains, and occupy a threatening relation to
West Tennessee and
Kentucky.
The success of the campaign would undoubtedly have compelled a retrograde movement of the forces at
Chattanooga.
It is not uncertain that our very presence here at this time may not lead to an entire alteration of the plans of
Gen. Grant, including the abandonment of his designs on
Northern Georgia, and a retreat to some point where he can at least protect his line of communications with
Nashville and other locations in his rear.
The operations for the winter may be at an end, but the approaching spring promises to open a grand campaign, to whose success we may confidently look for a glorious redemption from the chains which now enthrall out land.
