Lieutenant Joe Wyatt
(Company C) was elected surgeon of McNairy's Battalion, F. W. Hearn (Company
B), Quartermaster, and M. D. A. Nolan (Company A), Commissary Sergeant.
Sergeant Major M. W.
McKnight, Lieutenant George Alexander and Private T. D. Summer, all from
Company E, started home on furlough.
On the 2d instant,
Col. T. T. Garrard wrote to General G. H. Thomas thus:
Col.
Brown has now enrolled and in camp some 2501 twelve months soldiers.
He has muskets, but no cartridge boxes, caps, pouches, nor bayonet scabbards.
Have
not heard anything of the Rebels since they reached Barboursville. The last
account is that some 100 or upwards were in Barboursville. (Two companies of
McNairy's Battalion).
I
have got Col. Brown to move all of his men to the river (Big Rockcastle, some
two miles to the rear) except one company, and they are outside our camp in a
rock house. We have been much annoyed by them, as well as visitors and others
who were driven before the Rebels. Some of them returned this evening part of
the way home, but heard of the Rebels below London, and they returned to camp.
The report, I am satisfied, is false.2
And the next day,
the 3d, he wrote thus in reference to Brown's men:
You
will see before this reaches you that Col. Brown has moved to the river, some
two miles from us. I would be afraid to place them between the enemy and our
camp.
Some
of his men are, I fear, a little timid, and I doubt whether or not they will do
their duty on that side of us.3
And in reference to
Wolford's Cavalry, on the 10th, he puts it thus:
When
Captain Smith, of the cavalry, reached here (Wildcat), there was not one of
Walford's men in camp, nor had there been for several days, and if my informant
is correct, some of them that are now here will do no good. They were seen
drunk on picket yesterday at, or near, London.4
On the date under
which I am now writing, the 3d, Zollicoffer sent the following telegraph
dispatch to General A. S. Johnston, Columbus, Kentucky:
I
think I have reliable information that Camp (Dick) Robinson was 7,000 strong;
1,000 of these have gone to Lexington and Frankfort; 1,500 remain in camp, the
residue believed to be certainly moving toward Barboursville to meet me. Should
it appear to me expedient, I wish permission to meet them half way.5
On the same day
Johnston replied as follows:
"Dispatch
received. Exercise your own discretion in attacking the enemy."6
It was about this
time that Captain William Ewing resigned and returned home, and William Parrish
became Captain of Company C, First Battalion.
1 It appears from the above that their force
at Laurel Bridge had been overestimated. Including Walford's Cavalry, perhaps
they did not exceed 500.
2 Rebellion
Records, Vol. IV., p. 290.
3 Ibid,
p. 292.
4 See
Rebellion Records (Garrard to Thomas), Vol. IV., p. 301.
5 Rebellion
Records, Vol. IV, p. 435.
6 RebellionRecords, Vol. IV, p. 435.
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