October 7, 1862, The New York Herald
The official despatches of General Grant relative to the late battle at Corinth confirm the news which we published yesterday. They are dated from Jackson, Tenn., on Sunday, and represent that, at that time, a large portion of General Rosecrans’ forces had advanced as far as Chevalla, in pursuit of the flying enemy. General Hurlbut was at the Hatchie river, following them with 5,000 men, and General Ord had met them on the south bank of the Hatchie, drove them across the stream, taking two batteries and two hundred prisoners, and obtaining possession of the heights on the other side. General Grant says that as things then looked he could not see any escape for the enemy without losing everything but their small arms.
Scouts from General Sigel’s army made a reconnoissance to Thoroughfare Gap yesterday, and brought in some prisoners, who report that the rebel army is falling back on Richmond, and that General Longstreet has already gone there. There was another expedition of our scouts to Newmarket and Gainesville, at which latter place they captured a rebel scouting party of Mississippians under Lieutenant Roberts.
We give today a full and highly interesting account of all the incidents of the President’s visit to General McClellan army, the grand review of the troops, and his interview with the Commanding General. A visit to the battle field of Antietam is finely described, and will give our readers some vivid conception of the sanguinary nature of that battle.
Advices received from Grenville, Missouri, state that the Texan rebel forces under General McBride, 2,000 strong, have been ordered back to Texas in consequence of Union victories gained at Marshal, Texas, and Shreveport, Louisiana. These victories were probably won by the Union troops who were reported as having gone up the Red river from Helena some time since.
The rebels in Kentucky seem to be breaking down. They evacuated Frankfort on Saturday, after inaugurating Mr. Richard Hawes Governor. They left their wounded and sick behind them. On Sunday the union pickets were at Hardinsville, advancing on Frankfort.
Our extracts from the Richmond papers today are peculiarly interesting, showing the sentiment of the South concerning the emancipation proclamation. The rebel Congress introduced resolutions of a very savage retaliatory nature, declaring that after the 1st of January, 1863, all officers and non-commissioned officers found invading the Confederate States should be treated as criminals, and put to hard labor until the end of the war, or the repeal of the Confiscation act. All such officers as may command, or train negroes or mulattoes for military service against the Confederacy or incite them to rebellion shall suffer death. Other pains and penalties are prescribed for different acts of our officers, and a war of extermination, in which the rules of civilized warfare are to be ignored, is proclaimed. These resolutions were read in the Senate, and not yet voted upon. In the House the spirit evinced was still more bitter, Mr. Lyons, of Virginia, introducing, a resolution exhorting the people of the Confederacy to kill every officer, soldier and sailor of the enemy found within their borders, unless a regular prisoner of war; declaring that after the 1st of January, 1863, no officer of the enemy ought to be captured alive, or if recaptured should be immediately hung; and offering a bounty of twenty dollars and an annuity of twenty dollars for life to every slave and free negro who shall, after the 1st of January, 1863, kill one of the enemy.
The Virginia Legislature resolved to grant immunity to any person who may kill any parties found on the sacred soil, armed or unarmed, aiding to carry out the purposes of the proclamation.
The Richmond Enquirer and examiner of Saturday prophecy a general engagement between the two armies immediately. The former says that a large force of our troops is at Martinsburg, with the left extending to Harper’s Ferry. General Lee, with a strong force, was rapidly moving towards Martinsburg, and there was every probability that a desperate battle was about to be fought. Persons of intelligence from Winchester state that McClellan cannot avoid an engagement unless he withdraws his army across the river a move which it is next to impossible for him to make, as he was evidently being urged forward by the Yankee administration and the clamors of the abolitionists. For him to retreat now, in the face of an enemy who had thrown down the gauntlet to him, would tend almost as much to demoralize his army as would a defeat.
The Examiner says that we are on the eve of a great battle in the vicinity of the Potomac. It reports that the Unionist shelled Charlestown and then took possession of it, and that our main force has crossed at Harper’s Ferry, General Geary occupying Loudon Heights.
The Enquirer is prepared for another long campaign, and declares that the people and government of the South […..] all conscious of the giant preparations which Lincoln is making. His vast drafts of men are not all. His shipyards are all busy, and gunboats of heavy draught and of light draught, cased in iron armor, and fitted up with all the art of war, all the appliances of ingenuity, are being constructed in great numbers. And it continues: ‘We must prepare for these gunboats, not by flippantly sneering at gunboat panics that would be very unwise; not by timid apprehensions of inability to resist them that would be very unwise also; but we must prepare defences on our rivers and obstructions in their channels. We must try all the virtues of sharpshooters on the banks, and the sub-aqueous batteries in the stream.’