Diary of Private Richard R. Hancock: Tuesday, October 29, 1861

Colonel McNairy sent a scout of sixty men out in the direction of London yesterday, and on returning last night four of Captain Horn's company put up for the night some fifteen miles from our camp. As they were coming to camps this morning they were fired on from the bushes. They reported that they returned the fire, killing one of the bush-whackers and capturing four muskets. They brought the muskets into camp. The above named scout went within about seven miles of London and reported that the Federals had advanced from Wildcat to that place.

General Albin Schoepf had advanced from Wildcat with six regiments¹ and two batteries of artillery, and established his headquarters at the junction of the Crab Orchard and Richmond roads, three miles north of London, with two of his regiments thrown forward to that place.

On the above date General Thomas sent the following dispatch to General Schoepf:

I have just received a letter from General Sherman. He objects to advancing the troops too far on this route, and directs that we go no farther than your camp for the present.²

The Major of our battalion, William Malcomb, resigned and started home.

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¹ Fourteenth, Colonel Steedman, and Seventeenth, Colonel Connell, Ohio, Thirty-third Indiana, Colonel Coburn, Third Kentucky, Colonel Garrard, First, Colonel Byrd, and Second, Colonel Carter, Tennessee, and Standart’s and Kenny's Batteries. Rebellion Records, Vol. IV., p. 322.

² Rebellion Records, Vol. IV., p. 323. See Appendix A.

SOURCE: Richard R. Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee Confederate Cavalry, p. 69-70