nine of their guns reaching our position. Meanwhile, the Twenty-fourth Indiana battery was pouring a most deadly fire among the rebel ranks in the opposite fields and woods. After various manoeuvring, we were thrown into a position on the left of that gallant battery, in a piece of woods with cleared ground all around it. In getting to that position, we had to pass through a perfect storm of all manner of deadly missiles, and, after getting there, we stood for three mortal hours under fire of artillery and small arms, which old soldiers describe as being the most ter

Our entire forces were commanded by Brigadier-General Sturgis.

It is due here to state, that had it not been for the gallantry of the intrepid Lieutenant-Colonel Young, in holding the strip of woods referred to, the issue of the fight would certainly have been very far from satisfactory, if not entirely disastrous. SUPER.

Doc. 32.

AMNESTY PROCLAMATION.

AMERICA.
PROCLAMATION.

WASHINGTON, December 8, 1863. WHEREAS, in and by the Constitution of the United States, it is provided that the President shall "have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases for impeachment ;" and

Whereas a rebellion now exists whereby the loyal State governments of several States have, for a long time, been subverted, and many persons have committed and are now guilty of treason against the United States; and

Whereas, with reference to said rebellion and treason, laws have been enacted by Congress declaring forfeitures and confiscation of property, and liberation of slaves, all upon terms and conditions therein stated, and also declaring that the President was thereby authorized at any time thereafter, by proclamation, to extend to persons who may have participated in the existing rebellion, in any State or part thereof, pardon and amnesty, with such exceptions, and at such times, and on such conditions as he may deem expedient for the public welfare; and

rible they had ever witnessed. Our own regi- BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF ment, One Hundred and Eighteenth Ohio, tried for the first time in so terrible a manner, together with the above-mentioned battery, stood the brunt of the fight, and sustained the heaviest loss. We had been thrown into a position without support, and we only escaped through the good judgment and skill of Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas S. Young, commanding, and the indomitable bravery of the men. In front of us was the railroad, running parallel to our line; and behind this, was a regiment of sharp-shooters picking us off at every opportunity. A piece of woods and a large corn-field to our left were swarming with "graybacks." They charged us the second time, and would, no doubt, ultimately have overwhelmed us, had not the First Tennessee calvary, Colonel Jim Brownlow, by a well-timed counter-charge, driven them from our left, while we poured a heavy fire into their front, causing them to beat a hasty retreat. But doggedly they rallied and advanced again, calmly filling up the gaps we made in their ranks, cheering loudly all the while. This advance was to take the Indiana battery, which had made terrible havoc among them, besides having silenced several of their guns; and they had well-nigh accomplished their purpose, and were only fifty yards from us, when Colonel Young gave the order to cease firing. He had just received orders to hold that strip of woods, and hold it he would, at all hazard. Our artillery was on the eve of being lost. What few men were left to man the guns were doing all they could to get them away. Again the order was, "Fix bayonets!" and in the next instant, led by the gallant Colonel, we charged them at the point of the bayonet. With unbroken line, at double-quick, we went at them and drove them out of the woods across the open field. This was the first suspicion that rebel infantry were in the woods, as we afterward learned from a printed address of Major-General Martin, who commanded the enemy's forces-two divisions under Wheeler and Armstrong.

The First Tennessee cavalry lost several in killed and wounded. The Twenty-fourth Indiana battery suffered most severely, nearly every man and horse belonging to it, being injured to a greater or less extent. The First Lieutenant and one private had their heads entirely blown off. The One Hundred and Eighteenth Ohio escaped with but forty-two killed and wounded, out of four hundred and forty-one engaged.

Whereas, the Congressional declaration for limited and conditional pardon accords with well-established judicial exposition of the pardoning power; and

Whereas, with reference to said rebellion the President of the United States has issued several proclamations, with provisions in regard to the liberation of slaves; and

Whereas, it is now desired by some persons heretofore engaged in said rebellion, to resume their allegiance to the United States, and to reinaugurate loyal State governments within and for their respective States; therefore,

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do proclaim, declare, and make known to all persons who have, directly or by implication, participated in the existing rebellion, except as hereinafter excepted, that a full pardon is hereby granted to them and each of them, with restoration of all rights of property, except as to slaves, and in property cases where rights of third parties shall have intervened, and upon the condition that every such person shall take and subscribe an oath, and thenceforward keep and maintain said oath inviolate; and which oath shall be registered for permanent preservation,

If they desert their cause they degrade themselves in the eyes of God and of man. They can do your cause no good, nor can they injure ours.

As a great nation, you can accept none but an honorable peace; as a noble people, you can have us accept nothing less. I submit, therefore, whether the mode that I suggest would not be more likely to lead to an honorable end than such a circulation of a partial promise of freedom. I am, sir, very respectfully, your most obedient servant, J. LONGSTREET, Lieutenant-General Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO, Lieutenant-General Commanding Forces in East

KNOXVILLE, E. T., January 7, 1864.

Tennessee:

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter dated January third, 1864; you are correct in the supposition that the great object in view in the circulation of the President's proclamation is to induce those now in rebellion against the Government to lay aside their arms and return to their allegiance as citizens of the United States, thus securing the reunion of States now arrayed in hostility against one another and restoration of peace. The immediate effect of the circulation may be to cause many men to leave your ranks, to return home or come within our lines, and, in view of this latter course, it has been thought proper to issue an order announcing the favorable terms on which deserters will be received.

I accept, however, your suggestion that it would have been more courteous to have sent these documents to you for circulation, and I embrace with pleasure the opportunity thus afforded to inclose to you twenty (20) copies of each of these documents, and rely upon your generosity and desire for peace to give publicity to the same among your officers and men.

I have the honor to be General, very respect-
fully,
J. G. FOSTER,
Major-General Commanding.

January 17, 1864.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO, Lieutenant-General Longstreet, Commanding Confederate Forces East-Tennessee: GENERAL: I have the honor to acknowledge the reception of your letter of the eleventh inst. The admonition which you gave me against trifling over the events of this great war does not carry with it the weight of authority with which you seek to impress me.

ship to all now in rebellion against the Government who may lay down their arms and return to their allegiance.

Second, the prosecution of the war until every attempt at armed resistance to the Government shall have been overcome.

I avail myself of the opportunity to forward an order publishing proceedings, finding, and sentence in the case of private E. S. Dodd, Eighth Texas confederate cavalry, who was tried, condemned, and executed as a spy.

I also inclose the copy of an order which I have found it necessary to issue in regard to the wearing of the United States uniforms by confederate soldiers.

I have the honor to be, General, very respectfully, your most obedient servant,

J. G. FOSTER,
Major-General Commanding.
HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO,
KNOXVILLE, TENN., January 8, 1864.

GENERAL ORDERS, No. 7.

Our outposts and pickets posted in isolated places having in many instances been surprised and captured by the enemy's troops disguised as Union soldiers, the Commanding General is obliged to issue the following order for the protection of his command and to prevent a continuance of the violation of the rules of civilized war

fare:

NORFOLK, VA., Monday, January 4. THE Success which crowned the late expedition of Colonel Draper, of the Second North-Carolina (colored) regiment, to Princess Anne County, resulting in the enlistment of a large number of recruits, the release from bondage of hundreds of slaves, the discomfiture of the guerrillas and the capture of their chief, induced General Wild, the commander of the colored troops in this deI am, nevertheless, ready to respond, in plain partment, with the approbation of Major-General terms, to the suggestions conveyed in your first Butler, to plan a raid of a similar character, but letter, and which you quote in your second des- on a much more extensive scale, beyond our lines patch, that I communicate through you any into North Carolina. This plan was in one reviews which the United States Government may spect entirely original. The success of a raid is entertain, having for their object the speedy res-usually made to depend upon the secrecy with toration of peace throughout the land.

which it is undertaken, and the rapidity with These views, so far as they can be interpreted, which it is executed-a dash into the enemy's from the policy of the Government, and sus-country, rest nowhere, and a hasty return. But tained by the people at their elections, are as follows:

First, the restoration of the rights of citizen

General Wild resolved to be absent a month, to occupy and evacuate towns at his leisure, relying upon a novel species of strategy and the bayonets

of his sable braves to recross our lines in safety when his work should be accomplished.

Collecting his available forces-about one thousand eight hundred men-at two points, the intrenched camp four miles from Norfolk, and a point conveniently distant from Portsmouth, the columns marched at daylight on the fifth ult., leaving so secretly that your correspondent was the only representative of the press aware of the movement, and a week later the public first learned, through the Times, that the main object of the raid had been accomplished.

The column, commanded by General Wild in person, consisting of the Second North-Carolina and the Fifth United States, encamped the first night at Deep Creek, nine miles from Portsmouth. Following the tow-path of the Dismal Swamp Canal, which commences here, a march of eighteen miles was accomplished the next day, the men encamping at night on Ferrebee's farm. A halt was made here until the middle of the following day, boats with rations and forage being expected to arrive. These not appearing, General Wild determined to advance, trusting to Providence and the country for the subsistence of his

men.

trial of the guerrilla chief, whom he had lately captured, I was in the saddle and on my way thither a dismal, lonely ride before me of nearly fifty miles. We left the camp near Portsmouth about nine o'clock in the evening, and, dashing into the darkness, arrived in an hour at Deep Creek, where a regiment of General Getty's brigade is now stationed. A brief delay here, caused by the countersign differing from the one in our possession, and we entered the tow-path of the Dismal Swamp Canal, which commences at this point. Passing several picket-fires, at each of which a cavalryman cried, "Dismount one; advance, and give the countersign!" we came at length to the reserve. This consisted of some twenty men, belonging to the Fifth Pennsylvania cavalry, who were seated around a blazing fire of fence-rails, near a deserted house, with several prisoners that had been brought in. This we learned was the last of our picket-posts, that it was twenty-five miles to Elizabeth City, and that there were plenty of guerrillas ahead. It was about midnight when we bade our friends good-by, and entered the enemy's country. We were now in the dreariest and wildest part of the Dismal Swamp; the darkness was dense, the air damp, and the ghastly silence was broken only

Encamping that night at South-Mills, the column was started the next morning in the direc-by the_hooting of owls and the crying of wildtion of Camden Court-House. The region abound- cats. For two hours we rode through the Stygian ed in agricultural wealth, was thickly settled, and blackness of the forest, when we arrived at Southcontained many slaves. All visible contrabands Mills-a collection of about twenty houseswere invited to " fall in," and parties were de- where we stopped to rest our horses. Here we tailed to search the houses of the planters. In left the canal and descended into another swamp many instances the slaves were found locked up, of Hades. The narrow, crooked road was flooded when the doors were broken open, the teams of with water, and crossed innumerable little rickety their masters impressed, and they were taken bridges, over which our horses picked their steps along with their household property. In this with great caution and reluctance. A mile of way the train was hourly extended, until by this road to Jordan, a suspicion I had expressed night it was half a mile in length. The inhabit that we had missed the way, strengthened every ants being almost exclusively "secesh," the minute. Turning a bend, a picket-fire, with four colored boys were allowed to forage at will along men standing by it, appeared ahead, while further the road. Returning to South-Mills, General on a large camp-fire lighted up the forest. What Wild sent his train of contrabands, numbering could this mean? We knew General Wild to be seventy-five wagons, under guard to Portsmouth. in Elizabeth City. Were our friends the guerA battery of artillery and two companies of cav-rillas on the war-path? or had a rebel force come alry, from General Getty's division, reinforced him here.

Arriving at River Bridge the next day, it was found to have been destroyed by the guerrillas, nothing of it remaining visible but the charred tops of the piles. Learning that a house and barn near by belonged to one of the guerrilla band, General Wild adopted a novel means to restore the bridge and punish the bushwhacker at the same time. In ten minutes, a thousand men were engaged in demolishing the house and barn; suitable portions of the timber were selected and drawn to the creek, and in six hours the whole force was across and pushing on to Elizabeth City.

Intelligence having reached me that Elizabeth City had been occupied by General Wild, without opposition, a few hours after forwarding my despatch to that effect to the Times, in company with Colonel Draper, of the Second North-Carolina, who had been detained in Norfolk by the

down from the Blackwater? Turning our horses aside, after a brief consultation, we decided to advance, come what might. In a moment we were challenged. Colonel Draper dismounted, and led his horse toward the picket. Presently we heard exclamations of welcome, and then a call of "All right-come on!" Riding up, we found that the picket was from Colonel Draper's own regiment, and learned that General Wild had left a considerable force behind to guard the bridge he had built. I need not say that this was an agreeable surprise. In a few moments we reached the camp, which presented a scene of singular picturesqueness. All about were strewn timbers, boards, joists, shingles, and the miscellaneous debris of the buildings torn down, among which, under shelter of every imaginable device, the sable soldiers were stretched upon beds of corn-stalks, while a hundred blazing fires threw their glare upon the sleeping figures, and lighted up the green cedar swamp around.

We were delayed an hour here, while the men were relaying the planks of the bridge, when we mounted our horses and posted on. We had now ten miles to Elizabeth City, and the road ran in dangerous proximity to a guerrilla camp. A half an hour of swamp and black darkness and we emerged from the forest at Hintonsville, which consists of a church and a single dwelling-house. Welcome dawn at length appeared, revealing a pleasant, open country, with spacious corn-fields on every side. Smoke began to curl from the chimneys of the farm-houses; here and there an early riser was drawing water from the well, or opening the doors of the barn, while hundreds of larks were singing in the groves and orchards.

Three Brothers-a little stern-wheel canal-boat, used by General Wild to procure wood, and as a transport. Quartermaster Birdsall, of the First United States, who had been installed commander of this formidable craft, elated by his good fortune in capturing that day two stranded sloops, which he maintained were blockade-runners, and thinking to obtain a still nobler prize, put after me at full speed, (two miles an hour,) and it was for a time uncertain, in the darkness of the evening, whether I would not be towed back in triumph, lashed to the stern of his victorious "wheelbarrow." I afterward almost regretted that this had not happened, for the wind being dead ahead, we were the whole night beating to As we rode into Elizabeth City, a little after the mouth of the river. The Sound reached, sunrise, I was surprised to see how its appear- with daybreak a furious wind arose, threatening ance had been changed by the war. Three years my frail craft with destruction. In fact, the pilot ago it was a busy and beautiful little city, noted pronounced the voyage impracticable, and we for the number of.its stores and manufactories, were crossing to the rebel shore, where I had dethe extent and variety of its trade, for its enter- termined to land and attempt to reach Plymouth prise and the rapid increase of its population. on foot, when a steamer was descried through Now most of the dwellings were deserted; the the fog. Tacking and steering for her, she proved stores all closed; the streets overgrown with to be the Whitehead, and I learned that Captain grass, its elegant edifices reduced to heaps of Flusser was on board the Miami, at the mouth ruins by vandal Georgian troops; the doors of of North River, whither the Whitehead was also the bank standing wide open, and a sepulchral bound. My boat was taken in tow, and in an silence brooded over the place. We found Gen-hour we were alongside the Miami. Captain eral Wild at his headquarters-the fine residence of Dr. Pool-standing on the piazza with a portion of his staff, and received a cordial welcome. I found that the attention of the General, after occupying the city, had been first turned to the guerrillas who infested the neighborhood, and that he had just sent out a force of one thousand two hundred men, under command of Colonel Holman, of the First United States, in the direction of Hertford, where there was reported to be a large camp of these villains. The expedition returned the next day, without accomplishing its object, all the bridges having been found destroyed, and the guerrillas keeping themselves concealed. They were not far away, however, for a man who straggled from the column was taken prisoner by them.

On Sunday morning the steamer Frazier arrived, with the intelligence that the gunboat North State, which had been sent from Old Point with orders to report to General Wild, had burst her steam-pipe, and was lying disabled in Currituck Sound. This disaster promised to prove a serious blow to the success of the expedition, which contemplated coöperation by water. Besides, it was not improbable that a formidable rebel force might be sent hither from the Blackwater, in which case it would be impossible to retreat or to hold the city for any length of time without the aid of a gunboat. As no other vessel could be procured from Fortress Monroe in less than a week, General Wild determined to send to Captain Flusser, commanding the naval force at Plymouth, for assistance.

Accordingly, a sail-boat and a loyal pilot having been found, near sunset I set sail for Plymouth, seventy-five miles from Elizabeth City. A few miles down the river I encountered the privateer

Flusser at once acceded to the General's request, and we were soon under way for Elizabeth City, before which we came to anchor about noon.

66

Major

Meanwhile, detachments were sent in all directions through the neighborhood to canvass the plantations for contrabands. One of three hundred men, under command of Major Wright, was landed by the Frazier on Wade's Point, at the mouth of the Pasquotank, with orders to scour the Peninsula between the Pasquotank and Little Rivers up to Elizabeth City, bringing in all the slaves that could be found. Wright returned with a train of thirty-eight ox, mule, and horse carts, containing the personal property of two hundred and fifty slaves that followed him into town. Almost hourly officers sent out on this service would report to the General the return of their commands, with the number of teams taken and slaves liberated. In addition to this, slaves belonging to isolated plantations were constantly coming to headquarters and asking the General to protect them in the removal of their families. Seldom did such a request fail to insure the necessary detail of men. The lately deserted streets of the city were thronged with liberated slaves that came pouring in from the country in every direction with their household furniture. As rapidly as possible the women and children, and such men as were physically unfit to serve as soldiers, were shipped to Roanoke Island, where a large negro colony has been founded under the care of Horace James.

Although the suppression of the guerrillas was considered by General Wild subordinate to the great object of his raid, which was to clear the country of slaves and procure recruits for his