I see in your paper of the eighteenth an extract from a Northern one, headed an ‘ Expedition up the Tennessee River.’
As concerns the account of the joy of the people of Florence at the visit of the gunboats, and upon seeing the old rag, the Stars and Stripes, it is a pointblank, jet-black abolition lie. Not a lady of Florence went to see them, or desired to go, or had any communication with them. They were held in utter detestation by every soul, except one man and his wife, a tailor from Vermont, named Hyde, who had been living here many years. They went down to see them, and were glad, but nobody else. A flag of truce was sent to the enemy by the citizens of Florence, to know what they wanted; this was all the intercourse the people of Florence had with them. The invaders professed to want nothing but government stores, and I believe they did respect private property in the ware-houses at the river; they did not come up in the town, which is about the fourth of a mile from the river. It was my opinion that they canoe on a reconnoitring expedition, and were not in force to kill, steal, and destroy, and therefore their virtue was of necessity, and not of good-will. All the violence they did was to break open the warehouses at the river, arid steal what they wanted.
This Vermont friend of theirs was caught that night (the night they left) coming up from a ware-house at the river, with a cart-load of bacon, and is now confined in jail on the charge of stealing it.
