Macon Tri-Weekly Telegraph, Tuesday Morning, February 18, 1862
Macon, Georgia: Joseph Clisby, 1862. Four page newspaper. Six columns. 42 x 54 cm. Horizontal and vertical crease. Adjacent areas partly folded over along vertical crease. Sound copy with moderate browning. This Confederate newspaper, published just a couple days after the South suffered a major defeat when Grant captured Fort Donelson in Tennessee, is full of contradictory reports. The front page is full of encouraging news from up to about 1:30 pm on the 15th when Confederate forces at Fort Donelson seemed to be forcing Union forces to retreat. Missing from the front page was the subsequent decision of General Floyd to retreat back to the Fort rather than press his advantage. Grant rallied Union forces and encircled the Fort. Generals Floyd and Pillow escaped the Fort overnight with about 2000 soldiers, leaving the rest of the Confederate forces to be forced into unconditional surrender on the 16th. A brief Special Dispatch dated the 17th reports on the third page that Fort Donelson had been taken and Union Troops had marched on toward Nashville which had surrendered. A short article on page two concludes that Nashville had not surrendered, An editorial titled "Planters, What Shall We Do?," occupying most of the second column on the front page, encourages Georgia planters to switch from raising cotton to growing food to avoid possible future mass starvation if other agricultural lands in the South became unavailable to the Confederacy, as was already true for the "great grain region of North Carolina" and might become true for parts of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. Very Good. Item #95898
Price: $375.00