Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Major-General William S. Rosecrans to Edwin M. Stanton, July 7, 1863

TULLAHOMA, July 7, 1863.
Hon. E. M. STANTON:

Just received your cheering dispatch announcing the fall of Vicksburg and confirming the defeat of Lee. You do not appear to observe the fact that this noble army has driven the rebels from Middle Tennessee, of which my dispatches advised you. I beg in behalf of this army that the War Department may not overlook so great an event because it is not written in letters of blood. I have now to repeat, that the rebel army has been forced from its strong intrenched positions at Shelbyville and Tullahoma, and driven over the Cumberland Mountains. My infantry advance is within 16 miles and my cavalry advance within 8 miles of the Alabama line. No organized rebel force within 25 miles of there, nor on this side of the Cumberland Mountains.

W. S. ROSECRANS.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 23, Part 2 (Serial No. 35), p. 518

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