SEPTEMBER 23, 1864:
United
States Colored Troops (U.S.C.T.) of the 106th, 110th and
111th Cavalry are met in battle with the 2nd and 3rd
Tennessee Cavalry. A bitter fight erupts
as the Tennesseeans attempt to retake the town of Athens, Alabama. The Union garrison
expends “70,000 rounds of cap and ball” as the action report reads. The
Confederate force, driven off, suffers upward of 300 casualties in this minor,
forgotten action.
A Yellow Fever epidemic rages in Union-held New Bern, North
Carolina. Although “Yellow Jack” is not unknown in the South most outbreaks of
this mosquito-borne disease occur in the summer months. A late season outbreak
of such virulence (2,000 people die) is highly unusual. It is not until after
the war ends that a former Confederate admits that he was tasked to kill
President Lincoln by sending him a “yellow fever overcoat.”
Jefferson Davis, who is becoming unhinged at the progress of
the war and ever angrier about the Dahlgren Orders of last year which obliquely
ordered his assassination (most likely issued by Edwin M. Stanton without
Lincoln’s knowledge), earmarked $200,000 to purchase clothing worn by Yellow
Fever victims in Bermuda. The clothing was meant to be sent on to the Northern
White House. The plot went awry when the agent (who was promised $60,000 for
his complicity but only received $100) decided the whole thing was too risky,
and left the crate of clothing at a Union warehouse in New Bern. Although the
clothes themselves are not infectious (mosquitoes carry the disease, not the
dead or their garb), perhaps a few errant insects survived the trip in the
crate, unlikely as it seems. In any event, it is a strange coincidence that the
outbreak occurred just around the time that the Yellow Fever overcoat plot fell
apart.
Jefferson Davis, on a morale-building tour of his ailing nation,
gives a speech at Macon, Georgia, which is by turns defensive, plaintive,
accusatory and inspiring. It reads in part:
It would have
gladdened my heart to have met you in prosperity instead of adversity - But
friends are drawn together in adversity . . .
What, though misfortune has befallen our arms from Decatur to
Jonesboro', our cause is not lost.
Sherman cannot keep up his long line of communication, and retreat
sooner or later, he must. And when that
day comes . . . our cavalry and our people will harass and destroy his army . .
.
How can this be the
most speedily effected? By the absentees
of Hood's army returning to their posts . . . If there is one who will stay away at this
hour, he is unworthy of the name of a Georgian . . . To the women no appeal is
necessary. They are like the Spartan
mothers of old. I know of one who had
lost all her sons, except one of eight years.
She wrote me that she wanted me to reserve a place for him in the ranks .
. .
It does not become us
to revert to disaster. "Let the
dead bury the dead." Let us with
one arm and one effort endeavor to crush Sherman. I am going to the army to confer with our
Generals. The end must be the defeat of
our enemy. It has been said that I abandoned Georgia to her fate. Shame upon such a falsehood . . .
When the war is over
and our independence won, (and we will establish our independence,) who will be
our aristocracy? I hope the limping
soldier. To the young ladies I would say
when choosing between an empty sleeve and the man who had remained at home . .
. always take the empty sleeve . . .
Macon . . . must not be abandoned . . .
Two-thirds of our men
are absent - some sick, some wounded, but most of them absent without leave . .
.
I have been asked to
send reinforcements from Virginia to Georgia. In Virginia the disparity in numbers is just
as great as it is in Georgia. Then I
have been asked why the army sent to the Shenandoah Valley was not sent here? It was because an army of the enemy had
penetrated that Valley to the very gates of Lynchburg . . .
With this we can
succeed. If one-half the men now absent
without leave will return to duty, we can defeat the enemy . . . Let no one
despond. Let no one distrust, and
remember that if genius is the beau ideal, hope is the reality.
Rebecca Wootters, a slaveowner, places the following
classified ad in the Richmond Daily
Dispatch:
[On] the night of the
21st of the present month my negro woman Isabella, who is of a light
gingerbread color, about nineteen years old, and a scar on her breast. Also,
carrying off her child, a very bright mulatto, about seven months old [went
missing]. Said woman has a very pleasant countenance, and speaks very quickly
when spoken to. I will give a reward . . . The said woman was purchased last
August [in] Hanover county, to which place she is supposed to have gone, or
otherwise trying to make her escape to the Yankee lines.
