3-008-757 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Civil War in America: cottonburners in the neighbourhood of Memphis surprised by Federal scouts - from a sketch by our special artist, 1862. 'Our Special Artist writes from Memphis as follows: "The only excitement now in the immediate neighbourhood of Memphis and in South-western Tennessee generally is an occasional collision between scouting parties of Indiana cavalry and the guerrilla bands of cottonburners. I send you a Sketch, the result of one of my scouts with a troop of horse, in which we came upon a party of Southerners on a plantation destroying every bale they could lay their hands on. In the foreground an officer is "hurrying up" the business; one man applies the torch to a pile of loose cotton; others are ripping open and rolling up the bales; while a group of frightened whites and negroes are assembled under the porch of the house. We took two or three of the guerrilla band; the rest scattered and made for the surrounding timber".' From "Illustrated London News", 1862.