The Sun. — 1868-11-19 (London, England)

TENNESSEE.—The story of the destruction of the arms near Memphis is gradually coming to light, and revelations are promised which will astonish the Ku-Klux themselves. Captain Ford of the tug spent the. afternoon in the &spec, watching the stowing of the arms and annnunition, and putting so many questions that he excited the suspicion of Captain Houston. At first Captain Houston and his brother were suspected of being in alliance with the Ku-Klux, but inquiry soon dissipated that error. No men on the river are more hated by the fire-eaters, who attribute to them the loss of the battle of Pea Ridge. At the time he was the owner of an Arkansas river boat, which was loaded with ammunition for the Confederate Army, whose Government had a Confederate agent on board hurrying it up. At a point on the river the captain shipped two horses, telling his brother he intended to snag and sink the ship in deep water, when the horses would be useful in making their way to Curtis' command. Houston succeeded in sinking his boat with all the ammunition, though not in making his escape, for he was captured and chained in a dungeon for 18 months till released by the advance of the Union Army. At least, such is the story told by a correspondent of the New York Tribune, who this goes on :--Governor Clayton, well knowing the desperate character of the undertaking of shipping these arms up the Arkansas, after the Rebel howl that had been set up about them, and well knowing his man, chose Captain Houston for the job. No expectation was entertained of getting up the Arkans is without a fight with the organ zed ban is of Ku-Klux, and preparation was accordingly male for a guard of 100 armed men to get on board at Helena. On the night before the little steamer sailed from Lade Rock, two friends viite I th 3 captain's hous3 in the outskirts of the, town, and warned lii n not t 3 venture out, saying that a party would certainly waylay and kill him it he did. The next morning it was ascertained that during the night a number of the Ku-Klux boarded the boat and assassinated a younger brother of the captain while he was asleep in his berth. His skull was stove in by an axe. While lying herein Memphis receiving the arms on board the captain was conscious that his every wove was watched, but he thought that once under way no trouble need be apprehended until entering  the Arkansas. With the appearance of the tug, however, flying her Ku-Klux ensigns, he was apprehensive that her intention was to run him down in the middle of the stream, so that the hated arms, Iloustons, and all, might go to the bottom together. Not to be caught in such a trap he at once ran in shore. The pirates once on board began au indiscriminate firing and demanded the arms and the Iloustons. The captain .and his brother, however, htd no intention of thus being murdered, and scrambled up the bank for the woods, several shots being sent after them while climbing the hill, from one of which the brother received a severe wound in the head. After the Iloustons had escaped, the rebels' attention was turned to the arms, the tug meantime being lashed fast to the steamer, and the two moving slowly up stream. The first report of the crew of the tug was that, the boxes being broken open, the arms were passed up from the hold to those on deck, who, taking them one by one, broke them over the wale of the boat, and threw them into the river. It was insisted, and I believe i 5 pretty well stuck to yet by the offic?.rs and crew of the tug, that all of the arms were thus destroyed. The story of the crew of the steamer, however, as well as facts since brought to light, disproves the story. Indeed, it is now tolerably certain that several hundred, perhaps a thousand, of these arms were put into the tug and landed on the Mississippi shore fifteen miles below here. It is said on credible authority that many of the arms were carried in the tug, and we now have intelligence by " Grape-Vine Telegraph," or from coloured sources, that several waggon-loads of muskets were teamed from the river into the country.