The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1863-06-13
The Situation In Rebellion Estate.
ments OF Fugitive CaDtain.

tain, late of the rebel army in Virginia,
TWO privates and three negroes all ref,I-
gees from Dixie" were brought in here a
lew days ago, by Major Allen, Of the New
1ork Forty-seventh, which regiment has
Ior some time past been on service down on
the Ogeeche River. The party left Savan-
nan last Thursday, the Nth, and were three
Jays IN making their way into our lines;
having scarce any thing to eat all that
Time, and suffering dreadfully from thirst;
the only drinkabIe water they could find
pelng little that some oyster shells had
Annaly saved up for them in a late rain. OF
course, tney were pretty thoroughly used
up Wnen they reached the camp Of the For
sy.seventh. have had several free talks
win the Captain, who, for special reasons
-goou ones, too, wishes his name withheld.
anu nave gathered from him some particu-
IaIs Wnlcn maybe Interesting to your read
ers, though most of them are not new.
| The Captain is native of Ireland: was
nvlng IN Savannah when the war broke
| out; did not wish to fight against the union.
was pressed into the service as a nriyate
ana worked his way up from the ranks to
nus present position. He is an intelligent,
wen Spoken man, and carries in his face
soundness Of mind. He is rather Young
looking, active and hardy, with a nuick
eye and ready wit; in short. he eyinces
a good deal of practical force, moreover. he
speaks of the motives and events of the
war in such away, as, itseems to me, would
concifiate any fair-minded nearer, though,
OF course, cannot pretend to vouch for his
trustworthiness. l will endeavor to pre-
sent, in as few words as may be, the main
items of this matter. rr. -
Our Captains first actual service was
with Floyd in Western Virginia. He says
that Floyd's whole force, six thousand men,
| would have been captured there, beyond
] ii ho1 ,1,v I>,~a a.
Rosecrans ordered; and that it was mys-
terry to them why they were allowed to es-
cape. Hewas under the late General Thorn
| as Jefferson Jackson through the great
campaign of last summer and fall; and he
speaks of that extraordinary man in the
highest terms as a soldier, gentleman and
a Christian. The Generals death was we'll
known at Savannah before our Captain
left, and was "wringing the Southern
heart more sternly than any other similar
event of the war.
| He was in several of the fights which
took place during Gen. Pope's retreat from
Gordensville to the Potomac. He speaks
particularly ofthe conflict at Thoroughfare
Gap, and is very strong in praise of Sigel's
| generals on that consolidating that, by
the mastery handling of his troops and
| placing of his guns, he utterly baffied all
their efforts to get through till the time
| came for continuing his retreat. He says
that aftet the battle of Antietam the rebel
armyS was shockingly demoralized, the
| Notwithstanding their great faith in him,
| well nigh lost his control of them; inso-'
| much that a vigorous course on our part
could scarce have failed of tearing the army
all to pieces. Why this was not done
| seems as mysterious to him as it is to some
others. +. j.
He was recentlyin Lee S army at Freder-
Ioly D1rnr n L,
on leave OF absence. have seen his pa
pers, and found them agreeing perfectly
| in form, date and signatures-with his ac-
count of himself. From all he could gath
er before leaving Savannah, he Judges
Hooker to have got decidedly the worst of
| 1t in the recent fighting on that bloody
ground; that Jackson, however, was worth
at least twen-five thousand men to the reb-
ell cause; that the'more sagacious ofjthe reb-
els, both in the field and at home, generally
acknowledged that Hookers leadership Is
making itself felt by them, as no other
Union General in Virginia has ever done
before. 1t is his opinion that before the
late fighting Lee had not less than 10000
men under his immediate commands; and
that his whole command, which includes
all Virginia and North Carolina, numbers
| as many as 25O, 900. That Rockers recent
| movement was aimed at Lees weakest
point; and, in fact, that Lees position was
impregnable everywhere else. On the
whole, it seems pretty clear that, in this
! mans judgment, the rebel chiefs have dis
! covered in Hooker's proceedings style Of
generalship which they will hardly ven
| ture to trif1e with. "A
The Captain fully confirms the reports
that have been coming to us of growing
scarcity and threatened restitution at the
South. What we have heard of as "bread
riots" he says, were really such, and not
NcalicO RIOTS - a now nrotondo1
The Virginia army has for some time
been on quarter rations of bacon and flour.
| AS for beef, it has pretty much ceased to be
known among them. OF coffee they have
none at all-only nondescript preparation
called Confederate Coffee" The scarcity
of bacon is partly owing to lack of salt
| for preserving it. aEs Pcs. 4
In Georgia, as might be expected, provi-
sions are not so short; yet -four is eighty
| dollars barrel at Savannah, butter two
dollars and fifty cents per pound, tea and
| coffee scarcely to be had at any price, and
board for laboring man ten dollars a
week. Georgia, too, is nearly exhausted of
beef, and has very little of young stock to
give promise of better supplies. A scheme
| is now on foot for procuring beef from the
vast herds Of cattle running wild in Flori-
da; and to this end, as well as to help on
the centraband trade through unblockaded
places, some forty-miles of railroad are to
is called the Albany and Gulf Railroad
The work is already begun, and is to be
pushed ahead with the utmost yigor. .
He corroborates, also, what has been said
Of late as to the giving out of the railroads
and rolling stock of the South. In building
| the aforesaid extension, old roads, or parts
of roads not much used, are to be torn up,
and the material worked in anew. BY a
recent order of State, all trains of cars,
| even express trains, are strictly prohibited
| from running faster than ten miles an
hour. So be found it on his return home
from the army in Virginia. a.E ~.
! Nor did the prohibition come any too
soon, as it was clear and absolute neces-
sity in order to save the wear and tear of
the roads and their rolling stock; for the
means of renewal are wanting and not to
be had, as there is not in all rebeldom a
single establishment for making railroad
iron, nor any possibility of building one.-
The engines, too, are breaking down, and
| the demand for new ones cannot begin to
be met, there being but few shops for ma
king them at all, while the machinery is
| Incoming useless and cannot be ranlacad