MILITARY MOVEMENTS OF THE REBELS IN KENTUCKY.
While Pillow and Polk were invading the south-western part of the State, General Zollicoffer was operating in the east. With some six thousand rebels he came to Cumberland Ford—which is situated near the point where the corner of Virginia runs into Kentucky—capturing a company of Home Guards. On the 17th of September the Legislature received a message from Governor Magoffin communicating a telegraphic dispatch from General Zollicoffer, announcing that the safety of Tennessee demanded the occupation of Cumberland and the three long mountains in Kentucky, and that he had occupied them, and should retain his position until the Federal forces were withdrawn and the Federal camp broken up.
That portion of Kentucky lying west of the Cumberland river was then declared under insurrectionary control, and Secretary Chase instructed the Surveyor at Cairo to prevent all commercial intercourse with that section, and to search all baggage and all persons going thither. Just about the same time the gunboat Conestoga captured the rebel steamers Stephenson and Gazelle, on the Cumberland, and one of them was found to contain one hundred tons of iron.