CHAPTER XXX.
Situation at Wilmington.—Situation at Charleston.—Lincoln thinks there is hope of our submission.—Market prices.—Ammunition turned over to the enemy at Vicksburg.—Attack on Sumter.—Stringent conscription order.—Disaffection in North Carolina.—Victory announced by Gen. Bragg.—Peril of Gen. Rosecrans.—Surrender of Cumberland Gap.—Rosecrans fortifying Chattanooga.—Mr. Seward on flag-of-truce boat.—Burnside evacuating East Tennessee.—The trans-Mississippi army.—Meade sending troops to Rosecrans.—Pemberton in Richmond.—A suggestion concerning perishable tithes.
September 1st.—Another letter from Gen. Whiting, urging the government by every consideration, and with all the ingenuity and eloquence of language at his command, to save Wilmington by sending reinforcements thither, else it must be inevitably lost. He says it will not do to rely upon what now seems the merest stupidity of the enemy, for they already have sufficient forces and means at their command and within reach to capture the fort and city. He has but one regiment for its defense!
I saw to-day a telegraphic correspondence between the Secretary of War and Gen. Buckner in regard to the invasion of Kentucky, the general agreeing to it, being sure that with 10,000 men he could compel Rosecrans to fall back, etc. But I suppose the fall of Vicksburg, and the retreat from Pennsylvania, caused its abandonment.
Hon. Wm. Capeton, C. S. Senate, writes the Secretary on the subject of compelling those who have hired substitutes now to serve themselves, and he advocates it. He says the idea is expanding that the rich, for whose benefit the war is waged, have procured substitutes to fight for them, while the poor, who have no slaves to lose, have not been able to procure substitutes. All will be required to fight, else all will be engulfed in one common destruction. He will endeavor to get an expression of opinion from the Legislature, about to assemble, and after that he will advocate the measure in Congress, intimating that Congress should be convened at an early day.
September 2d.—We have no news of any importance from any of the armies. Gen. Bragg, however, telegraphs, August 31st, that he is concentrating his forces to receive the enemy, reported to be on the eve of assailing his position. He says he has sent our paroled men to Atlanta (those taken at Vicksburg), and asks that arms be sent them by the eastern road. Col. Gorgas, Chief of Ordnance, says this is the first intimation he has had as to the disposition of the paroled prisoners. Does he understand that they are to fight before being exchanged?
Brig.-Gen. G. J. Rains writes from Charleston that the grenades reported by the enemy to have been so destructive in their repulse at Battery Wagner, were his subterra shells, there being no hand-grenades used.
The other night Beauregard sent a steamer out with a torpedo to destroy the Ironsides, the most formidable of the enemy’s iron-clads. It ran within forty yards of the Ironsides, which, however, was saved by swinging round. The torpedo steamer’s engine was so imperfect that it could not be worked when stopped, for several minutes, to readjust the arrangements for striking the enemy in his altered position. When hailed, “What steamer is that?” the reply was, “The Live Yankee,” and our adventurers got off and back to the city without injury—and without inflicting any.