January 17, 1864

January 17, 1864

---Battle of Dandridge, Tennessee:  Sturgis’s Federal cavalry drives off the Rebel cavalry, but then runs into a Rebel brigade under Gen. Micah Jenkins, with artillery.  Sheridan tries to cross the river to where Sturgis has taken  a stand, but is frustrated by lack of equipment.  Late in the afternoon, Jenkins goes forward, and strikes Sturgis’s dismounted troopers.  Sturgis holds, until the fighting finally stops after dark.  Sturgis pulls his cavalry back across the river to safety, and all of the Union forces are falling back toward Knoxville.  The Confederates attempt to pursue, but lack of rations and shoes make this impractical.  There is no clear victory, but the Rebels hold the ground and a marginal advantage.  Confederate Victory.

---George Templeton Strong, a New York City lawyer, writes in his journal about the known activity of Confederate agents and attempted Rebel negotiations with foreign powers:

. . . Intercepted rebel correspondence is entertaining and instructive.  Rebel agents abroad are making and losing great sums in their blockade-running lottery, while their people at home suffer and starve.  It is curious to observe how freely those agents of the Confederacy talk of assigning to Louis Napoleon Texas, or even Louisiana and Arkansas and everything west of the Mississippi, as a bribe that might at last induce one Power of Christendom to recognize the Confederacy and a new nation of women-floggers.  Their first principle is the right of every state to secede whenever it pleases, but they are ready to make any state a colony of a foreign power if the interests of their dirty rebellion will be thereby promoted.

George Templeton Strong