Saturday, January 26, 2013

A “Reliable Gentleman” From Memphis, And What He Says

A gentleman of integrity and intelligence, who resides at Memphis, and who left that city one week ago, passed through this city yesterday.  He made his way through the rebel lines by bribing the sentinels, paying two of them the sum of five dollars each to induce them to permit him to pass.  When he left Memphis, it was understood there by the best informed persons that there were from fifty to sixty thousand troops between Memphis and Huntsville, Alabama, which included all the effective force of Beauregard that could be brought to bear against the combined armies of Generals Grant and Buell.  Our informant says that Gen. A. S. Johnson [sic] has expressed the opinion that the Confederates could take no fortified position and hold it for any great length of time, as all such positions could be successfully flanked by the Federal army.  Hence he had determined, and in that determination he is supported by Gen. Beauregard, to seek an open fight at an early day upon a field of his own selection somewhere in the vicinity of Corinth, Mississippi, the location offering admirable facilities for such an encounter, and have everything in the course of preparation for the destruction of the city, if the fortunes of the war should turn against them.  Our informant says that the better citizens of Memphis, many of whom have all along sympathized with the rebellion, are thoroughly discouraged with the prospects before them, and that if they could a satisfactory assurance that their lives and property would be protected, they would return to their former allegiance. – {Lou. Jour. 5th.

– Published in the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 12, 1862, p. 2

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