January 9, 1863

January 9, 1863: Missouri Raid – Col. Joseph Porter and his 700 Rebel riders arrive outside Hartville, Missouri, their original target and, not having heard from Marmaduke, Porter decides to attack. He sends an advance guard forward, and then finds that the tiny Federal garrison there—40 men—have surrendered to the advance guard. Rather than the vast stores reported to have been there, the Rebels find only 200 muskets. Gen. Marmaduke, meanwhile, having side-stepped Springfield, raid farther in a northeast direction, splitting into two columns.

 
—Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, alarmed at the turn of command to McClernand down near Vicksburg, marches 15,000 of his troops to Memphis as he goes there to prepare to descend the river and assume field command himself.


—Horatio Nelson Taft, who works for the U.S. Patent Office, notes in his journal concerns many people are having about the war, its cost, and Slavery:
Congress does not seem to be doing much. The currency Bill, the financial measure of Mr Chase, I fear will be smothered by outside influence. Members will acknowledge the justness and majesty of such a Bill but I fear will lack the courage to face the displeasure of the Banks and interested parties. Mr Chase (the Sec'y of the Treasury) reccommends that all paper money shall be U.S. Money and that all Banking Institutions shall be based upon U.S. Stocks. That would give us a safe and uniform Currency. There seems to be an increasing desire to see this terrible War ended, Negro or no Negro, Slavery or no Slavery. It does seem preposterous to me that we should be spending Millions, nay hundreds of Millions, and sacrificing scores of thousands of lives to abolish Slavery just now, when we have all we can do to hold our own and hope for success without bringing Slavery into the question.

—Julia LeGrand of New Orleans, after an acquaintance of hers has an altercation with Gen. Banks of the Union army, writes in her journal of her bitterness at being in occupied city:
These people rob us of our houses, make laws forbidding us to sell property, or to leave town, or in fact to do anything without their permission, yet they are angry and rude when one calls on this necessary business. Men have been snatched up without knowing wherefore and kept in forts or in the custom house, and their wives and friends have been treated as impudent intruders for even making inquiry after them. Mr. Wilkinson, grandson of old General Wilkinson of the last war, has just got out of confinement, having been placed in same by Butler on the testimony of a negro woman—offence, keeping arms in his house—with the town filled with homeless, lawless negroes who commit robberies and other offences daily. I never realized until this Yankee rule here how many bad men America had produced.