January 16, 1864

January 16, 1864

--- Major General John Foster, in command of the Union Army of the Ohio stationed in Knoxville, Tennessee, has forwarded much of his force toward Dandridge, Tennessee, which is about midway between the Federals and Longstreet.  Dandridge is at the junction of seven roads, and a key point for either army making a move towards the other.  Gen. John Parke, commanding the advance force, nears Dandridge, and sends Gen. Sturgis and his cavalry forward to take the town.  Sturgis approaches over several routes.  One of his divisions runs into Longstreet’s cavalry, and the rest of the blue riders encounter a brigade of Rebel infantry.  Sheridan’s division advances close to Dandridge, ready to support Sturgis.

---A Democrat-leaning newspaper in Seneca County, New York, publishes an editorial attacking Republicans for caring more about the slaves than they do about the Union:

Saving the Union.

That the people ardently desire a restoration of the Union is an undeniable fact. That its preservation is an object dear to the public heart all will readily admit. The love of the Union is an instinct with the American people, and this popular instinct has been the great power which the present administration has wielded to carry out its principles of negro equality. Assuming that the partisans in power were trying to restore the Union, it followed as a logical consequence that they had the right to remove whatever obstacles there were in the way of its restoration. This has afforded them them the excuse, to the popular mind, for all their assaults upon the Constitution and all their outrages against personal liberty. Persons often wonder why the people acquiesce in and seem to support all the unconstitutional acts of Lincoln’s administration. The easy answer to all this is, “the Union! the Union!” That is associated in the popular mind, as such an unmixed good, that anything and everything seems of less value.

But who sincerely believes that Mr Lincoln or his party has ever made the first effort to save the Union? Since the 4th day of March, 1861, all that has been done has tended to destroy it, and to make its destruction more certain and more sure. Is there a Republican in the land who does not know that the Union is to-day farther off than when Mr. Lincoln sent his first fleet to Charleston, and set in motion the awful train of circumstances that have followed? But beyond all this the men in power never wished to save the Union. They never wished to preserve it, and they do not, and are not, trying to restore it, and would not restore it if they could. . . .

---Gen. Longstreet begins a move towards Knoxville again.