Nov. 17, 1861

Nov. 17, 1861: Confederate Gen. Felix Zollicoffer, with a small force in the Cumberland Gap area of Kentucky, moves south into eastern Tennessee to quell a Unionist uprising in the Knoxville area, where several hundred pro-Union Tennesseans under Gen. William Clift are gathering. Zollicoffer is unable to identify a specific threat and, after it is clear that the Unionist force has scattered, the Rebels move back up into Kentucky.

Mary Boykin Chestnut, at home in South Carolina, writes in her diary:
Our life here would be very pleasant if there were no Yankees. . . . John De Saussure says that it is a mistake that he is anxious. He means in case of trouble to take refuge under the Federal flag with his cotton and his negroes. And he is fool enough to think that they will let him keep them.

If we could shake off this black incubus! I would almost be willing to allow them the credit of their philanthropy. After all, there is where the shoe pinches.

--Private Emmet Cole of the 8^th Michigan Inf. Regiment, stationed on the newly captured Hilton Head Island in South Carolina, writes home to his sister Celestia:
Oh! how true and how glad I would be to see you Celestia if I could but I know I cannot just now and so I rest contented I have not been homesick since I enlisted, but if I do feel a little dis___ when I see the Stars & Stripes move slowly up the Flag Staff, at sunrise it nerves me up and I feel all right again and I am not alone. they are not counted by ones nor tens who have left their homes and friends to encounter the hardships and dangers of war for Freedom, but by Thousands and now Celestia I tell you the trust I am not a bit deceived in this affair for I expected to see hardships before I started and you remember that I told you so. you say I have your Prayers where’er I go. I knew I did. I knew it the while, but Celestia pray not for me alone but for the whole Army and Celestia I do not believe but that Sister’s and Mothers Prayers, as they ascend to Heaven from our Northern Homes will do more toward ending this deplorable war. than all the iron and steel that we possess.