2006-03
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/28/2006
Bristol Gazette broadside, 1p. 5-3/4"x16-1/2", July 1, 1864, with feature headline "Glorious News. Our Prospects are Bright." This pro-Southern newspaper relates reports that skew the overall war results to make it appear as though the South was actually winning the war by the summer of 1864. These articles read in part: "...Lynchburg, June 30th. Gen. Wilson (Yankee) and 1200 men were captured yesterday near Stony Creek, on the Petersburg and Weldon Railroad. Gen. Hampton has completely used up the other party of raiders. We have given Grant's cavalry fits every where. No particulars from Johnston's fight as yet - only Sherman whipped badly." with communications from Johnston to Bragg from Marietta, Georgia, June 27th, "The enemy advanced upon our whole lines today. They assaulted furiously Shield's, Cleyburn's Stevenson's and Quailes commands, by whom they were repulsed. On the rest of the lines skirmishing was severe - their loss was supposed to be severe ours small..." Also a dispatch received that day is recorded and reads "Gen. Forrest has captured a large wagon train of over two hundred wagons in route for Sherman, together with a large number of negroes..." Fine. Bristol, Tennessee was incorporated just before the Civil War in 1856 and straddles the Virginia state lines with the northern portion of the original town called Goodson. On the eve of the Civil War the booming twin boroughs were inextricably linked by the short-lived prosperity of railroad commerce that quickly dwindled with the onset of the conflict. Still, in 1861 Bristol had acquired many of the trappings of a well to do small town, including a depot, post office and newspaper. Throughout the war Bristol remained an important rail junction on the Confederacy's interior lines of communication linking the two states via the East Tennessee & Virginia Railroad to points west and south. The town of Bristol was unique in East Tennessee in that it remained a strongly pro-Southern enclave amongst a population that generally sympathized if not outwardly supported the Union. The major advocate of Bristol was its' Gazette newspaper which demonstrated a doggedly pro-Southern bias as evidenced by the above edition.
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