Editor’s Note: This article was transcribed by Jackie Martin.
[Note: Sections of this article not pertaining to the Siege of Petersburg were removed.]
THE WAR NEWS.
Yesterday being Sunday [September 11, 1864], was fruitful of rumours most absurd relative to movements said to be taking place in and about Petersburg. They are unworthy of the space it would require to repeat them.
We have authentick information that yesterday was one of the most quiet days at Petersburg that has passed during the so called siege. Not a gun was heard to disturb the stillness of the Sabbath air. On Friday [the night of September 9, 1864, really early morning of September 10]1 the enemy captured a small party of our pickets south of the town. This driving in and capturing of pickets is a thing of daily occurrence when great hostile armies are in close proximity. Both sides practise it, and all reflecting pickets, when on outposts, consider their being captured or “driven in” as among the most probable of events.2
Source:
- SOPO Editor’s Note: I am nearly certain this sentence refers to the Union assault on the Confederate skirmish line near “the Chimney’s”, along the Jerusalem Plank Road and half way between Forts “Hell” and “Damnation”, or Forts Sedgwick and Mahone. Mott’s 3rd Division, Second Corps assaulted the Confederate earthworks at 1 a.m. on September 10, 1864, and hung on to the high ground through the Confederate counterattack. This gave the Union pickets an advantage in the incessant skirmishing which occurred in this sector. ↩
- “The War News.” Richmond Examiner. September 12, 1864, p. 2 col. 1 ↩