18, Editorial anxieties in Memphis about food supply and clothing for Tennessee's soldiers
We desire to call the attention of planters to the importance of an early subscription in flour and corn-meal for the use of our army. The Confederate Government purchases in May last an immense quantity of flour, and stored it as this place, but the supply is now nearly exhausted. Unless the planters of West Tennessee, North Alabama, and Mississippi, come forward and subscribe flour and meal, taking Confederate bonds in payment, our brave boys in the field will soon be without read. Let each planter indicate to the Commissary Department at this place, by mail or through his commission merchant, what quantity he is willing to sell to the Government for their bonds, and let them send it forward immediately. There are five mills in operation here capable of grinding _____ [sic] bushels daily, to which the planters can send their bushels daily, to which the planters can send their wheat and have it ground and barreled, ready for transportation. The near approach of the autumnal season, and the almost certainty of the continuance of the war, suggest not only the propriety but the necessity of supplying our troops in the field with warm clothing and warm covering. It will not probably be within the power of the Government to do this, and much necessarily depends upon individual effort. On this subject the following suggestions of the West Tennessee Whig are the most feasible and practicable we have seen: --
The supply of blankets in store is exhausted, and the possibility of supply from the North is cut off by the rigid non-intercourse of the war, while the blockading of our seaports cuts us off from all hopes of a reasonable supply by importation. How, then, it may be asked, are the wants of our soldiers to be supplies: It can only be done by every family giving up a portion of the blankets they have for family use, to the soldiers, and supplying the deficiency thus created by making "comforts" out of cotton for their own use. These comforts do well enough for persons in comfortable houses at home when they are not exposed to the weather, and our people are expected to make use of them, and send their blankets to the soldiers. There is no time to be lost in doing it either. Before many are aware of it, the cool nights of early autumn will be upon them, and what they do for the comfort of the soldiers, they must do quickly.
Memphis Appeal, July 18, 1861
18, "Working Men's Union Meeting at Exchange Building To-Night."
A meeting will be held by the working men of Memphis, to-night, at Exchange Building, as advertised in our columns. It is believed to be high time that the laborer and the mechanic come forth and speak for that Union whose chief prosperity is due to the labor of his brawny arm, the sweat of his manly brow, the loss of which, even for a time, was to him the loss of liberty and dignity. The meeting should be a full one. It should be a clean protest against the unholy rebellion which sustained itself by dragging the laborer like a hound from his home, to work per force and without remuneration, a protest against the rebellion which subjected them to be dragged to encampments from the side of their dependent wives and families, which looked upon all labor as disgraceful, and the white laborer as less since than a negro, a protest against the rebellion which shot those who resisted the indignities it heaped upon them, whose leaders applied to for redress, remarked, "it is only an Irishman!" Come out, working men, mechanic and laborer; enter your protest against tyranny, manifest your love and gratitude for the flag that has ever protected you. Let those talk "nigger" [sic] who will, your interest and dignity are with the old United States, within whose protection alone the mechanic and the laborer have ever stood the proud and just equals in social and political rights to every other class of the community.
Come to the meeting and speak, Old Pinch, from the factory and the smithy. Come and come with those dear and near to you, ever protected beneath the old Constitution as much as they were disregarded by rebellion. Come out, one and all.
Memphis Union Appeal, July 18, 1862.
18, A Maury County Confederate's confrontation with a Confederate guerrilla – a dispute about the oath of allegiance
After leaving Mooresville we was acosted [sic] by a southern soldier guerilla who stopt me & asked my name I give it to him & asked his name he refused at first letting it saying he understood I was persuading Pickens to take the oath of alegiance [sic] to get his property I denied it said I did not persuade him anyway but told him that others was doing so who had taken the oth [sic] that was then & had been good Southern men he made some threats about the Gurillas [sic] taking my property. I demanded his name I got out of my bugy [sic] & told him I would know it, he then told me his name was Lowrey & that he was glad that he had had an explanation that he would inform the gurillas [sic] which he had on doubt would be satisfactory to them & him we then parted I saw on the way [to] Overtons Fleming's son who also told me the gurillas [sic] were ensensed [sic] at me for telling Pickens that I did or what they way told I had said to Pickins & he appeared satisfyed & said he had to believed it.
Diary of Nimrod Porter, July 18, 1863.