Came across this series of correspondence today in "House Miscellaneous Documents, 2nd Session, 49th Congress, 1886-87, Vol. 2; Rebellion Record, Series1, Vol XVII Part 2, Correspondence, etc." and thought others might be interested.
Clarksville, Tenn., October 17, 1862
His Excellency Jefferson Davis, Richmond:
Dear Sir: Permit me to make known to you the Rev. Mr. Taylor and his young friend Mr. William Hume, both among the most respectable of our citizens. They have been commissioned to deliver you a memorial adopted at a town meeting to-day, asking the protection of the Confederate Government against marauders from the Northwest, who are daily committing the most gross outrages upon our citizens, briefly set forth in the memorial, and will be more fully explained by the Rev. Mr. Taylor, who is conversant with the facts, and who is a gentleman of undoubted integrity and possesses the entire confidence of this community and a thorough knowledge of the operations of our armies in this section, embracing the valleys of the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, which can and will furnish an immense quantity of provisions for the Confederate armies if they can be made secure from the depredations of these jayhawkers from Iowa and Northern Illinois. I am confident there are not less than 50,000 or 60,000 barrels of flour in the mills in this immediate neighborhood, and immense crops of corn ready for gathering. Two or three regiments of these thieves and robbers are stationed at Forts Henry, on the Tennessee, and Donelson, on the Cumberland, who are daily visiting and destroying everything that comes in their way and seem likely to lay waste the whole section. Our immediate neighborhood has furnished three regiments for the Confederate service - the Fourteenth, Forty-ninth, and Fiftieth - who have taken most of the arms in the country and left us entirely without the means of defense. Unless some protection can be afforded before the winter freshets in our rivers take place most of the citizens will be compelled to abandon their homes and seek protection in other sections not within reach of their gunboats.
There is but little difference among our citizens, indeed I may say none, upon the great questions now in contest between the North and the South, and therefore the Federals more willingly harass and oppress us than in other sections less united.
I have the honor to be, most respectfully, your friend and servant,
C. Johnson
Clarksville, Tenn., October 17, 1862
At a meeting of some of the citizens of Clarksville, held this day for the purpose of apprising the War Department of the Confederate States of America of the manner in which the people of this portion of the country have been treated by Col. [W.W.} Lowe, and Col. A.C. Harding, of the Eighty-third Illinois Regiment, and other Federal officers commanding at Fort Donelson, on motion the Hon. Cave Johnson was called to the chair and Rev. Dr. McMullan was appointed secretary.
The following statement of facts was then made and unanimously adopted by the meeting as an expression of a part of the outrages that have been committed as above mentioned:
The commanders above named and others have been and still are engaged in arresting many of the citizens of this portion of country and placing them in a loathsome dungeon and keeping them there unless they take the oath of allegiance, these citizens being in no way connected with the Confederate Army. They have gone to the premises of many citizens, seizing them, and destroying or carrying away all their property of every description. In some cases they burn everything before them. They have taken away many hundreds of negroes. They have visited houses, insulting ladies, and threatening to shoot, stab, bayonet, or even burn them. They have robbed them of their wardrobes, not only those of men, but even those of women and children. They are in the habit of taking all the negroes wherever they go and also all the horses. They have burned the rolling-mill of Woods, Lewis, and Co., destroying everything, and taking away 240 negroes. They have also broken up or destroyed the various iron mills and furnaces in this region of the country, so that this interest, so important to the Government, is now, and until we can be protected must remain, wholly inoperative. We in this city have been visited by these men and treated in a savage and brutal manner, and they daily threaten that they will return and utterly destroy the city and imprison all the citizens who do not take the oath of allegiance to the Federal Government. The aforesaid Harding visited a church in the country and arrested two ministers of the Gospel and placed them in prison, where they still are. He also took the horses and carriages from the congregation, and required the persons present, both male and female, to take the oath or go to prison, and he proclaims that every man in the country shall be arrested and either take the oath or go to the dungeon. This is our present condition. Now, we are wholly unprepared to repel these insults and oppressions. It is true there are still many men here who are willing to meet them, but we are wholly destitute of both arms and ammunition, nor is there any military force in this vicinity that is able to repel them.
We think it will appear to the Department, as it is perfectly manifest to ourselves here, that unless these marauders can be driven from this region of country this whole region will soon be devastated by them.
We earnestly call the attention of the War Department to this subject in hope that whatever can be done for the suppression and prevention of these evils will soon be accomplished.
In order that the whole matter may certainly and speedily be laid before the Department we send this paper by William Hume, as our special agent and messenger.
C. Johnson,
Chairman
B.B. McMullan, Secretary
October 25, 1862
Respectfully submitted to the President.
This information, coming from reliable sources, seems to justify the outlawry that has been denounced against Pope and others. The messenger returns on Monday and wishes to carry some assurance that the Government will act in the matter. I therefore recommend that he be authorized to say that the Government will exert itself to redress the wrongs of the people of Clarksville, and will immediately declare Colonels Harding and Lowe not to be entitled to the treatment of prisoners of war, and that if captured they will be treated as felons.
G.W. Randolph,
Secretary of War
To the Secretary of War:
The outrages set forth in this paper and the inclosed letter of the Hon. C. Johnson call for the most strenuous efforts to redress the wrongs suffered. It would be well to bring the matter to the special notice of General Bragg and to give him a copy of these communications; also to declare, for the reasons set forth, that the officers named would not be (unless exculpated by evidence) regarded as entitled to the consideration accorded to soldiers and treatment of prisoners of war, who are by stipulation of cartel to be released is captured, upon parole.
Jefferson Davis