July 28, 1862

July 28, 1862:  Col. John Hunt Morgan of the Confederate Cavalry reports on his successful raid throughout Kentucky, detailed the several actions fought by his men.  Morgan points out that although he began the raid with 900 men, and suffered some casualties, he returns with over 1,200 men.  He apparently has garnered recruits from Southern-leaning Kentuckians.

---In a letter to Cuthbert Bullitt, Pres. Lincoln says this, in discussing the state of Louisiana’s re-admission, contraband slaves, and the cost of the war: 

The truth is, that what is done, and omitted, about slaves, is done and omitted on the same military necessity. It is a military necessity to have men and money; and we can get neither, in sufficient numbers, or amounts, if we keep from, or drive from, our lines, slaves coming to them. . . .

The people of Louisiana who wish protection to person and property, have but to reach forth their hands and take it. Let them, in good faith, reinaugurate the national authority, and set up a State Government conforming thereto under. . . . This is very simple and easy.

If they will not do this, . . . it is for them to consider whether it is probable I will surrender the government to save them from losing all. If they decline what I suggest, you scarcely need to ask what I will do. What would you do in my position? Would you drop the war where it is? Or, would you prosecute it in future, with elder-stalk squirts, charged with rose water? Would you deal lighter blows rather than heavier  ones?  Would you give up the contest, leaving any available means unapplied.

I am in no boastful mood.  I shall not do more than I can, and I shall do all I can to save the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal inclination.  I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing.

---Governor Lubbock of Texas, along with Rector of Arkansas, Moore of Louisiana, and Jackson of Missouri, write a letter to Pres. Davis reaffirming their commitment to the Confederate cause, and pleading for troops and war materiel to help them beat back Yankee invasions.

---In St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, a pro-secession mob attacks and destroys the newspaper offices of the pro-Union St. Croix Herald.  St. Stephen lies on the border between Canada and Maine.

---William Lyon, a Union army officer, answers in a letter home his wife’s concerns about his morale:

Camp Clear Creek, Miss., July 28, 1862.—So you fear my good spirits are assumed. Nary a bit of it. With an appetite that enables me to eat two rations. with physical vigor that keeps me free from an ache or a pain and lets me sleep on the hard earth as soundly and sweetly as I ever did on the softest bed, with a tolerably good looking, middle aged wife and two cute children ‘up North,’ with the consciousness of doing my duty, and an increasing habitual reliance upon the protection of Divine Providence, why shouldn’t I be in good spirits!