26th. – Detained at Clarkesville by the unwarrantable
interference of the officer in charge of the gunboat fleet who deemed it
necessary to give us convoy against guerillas, lay there all night and until 9 A.M.
of the 27th, which passes without event. Scenery on the river beautiful, high
rocky cliffs of limestone, iron in abundance in these hills. Arrived at
Nashville about two o'clock in the morning of the 28th. City dirty and
disagreeable; has been the abode of wealth, as evidenced in the splendid
architecture of the private dwellings, but everything now shows the brunt of
war and war's desolation.
I find many friends and am hospitably entertained at the
quarters of General Sawyer, General Sherman's Adjutant-General. The military
are all agog at the good news from Sherman, but everybody here is as ignorant
as I am of Hood's movements, of Thomas's intent. I have telegraphed to Gen. A.
J. Smith, who is far to the front, but as yet receive no response. Railroad
communication will be opened soon, we hope, to near the front, when I shall
progress as soon as possible.
P. S. — You may have noticed in the papers that the train
from Louisville to this point was attacked and captured, and that thus travel
by rail was interrupted. With my usual good fortune, I have escaped this
calamity, and it is doubly well with me that I came by boat.
SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of
Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 373-4
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