SIR: Having blockaded the roads over the mountains near Jacksborough, and believing the fortifications at Cumberland Gap very strong, I do not think an army train of the enemy can pass the mountains anywhere between the Pound Gap, in Virginia, and Jacksborough, a distance of about 120 miles. I have started the regiments of Colonels Statham, Newman, Cummings, and Battle, the first battalion of the Sixteenth Alabama Regiment, and Branner's battalion of cavalry, with Rutledge's battery, around by Wartburg, on the way to Jamestown, Tenn., and Monticello, Ky.
I came here rapidly last night to obtain more definite information of the state of things along the line of the railroad and among the tories generally. I will leave for Wartburg this evening, feeling that there is no necessity for remaining longer. General Carroll telegraphs me from Chattanooga that he is there with two regiments, half armed. I have ordered him here, with such of his command as are not engaged in pursuing Clift, a leading tory of Hamilton County, and his followers. Three different expeditions are moving from different points upon Clift's men. I fear they will disperse and take to the mountain fastnesses, eluding our forces. A Pensacola regiment, I learn, is at Chattanooga, and a regiment from Virginia is near Elizabethton, I hear. The present indications are that the tories are about being rapidly overwhelmed. I am seizing arms of Union men known to be inimical to Confederate Government, and hope in this way to arm Carroll's men who are not already armed. I propose to take and strengthen a position between Monticello and Somerset, giving us facilities for commanding the Cumberland River, the coal region supplying Nashville, &c. If I can clear the banks of the Cumberland of our enemies, supplies may this winter be furnished us by boats from Nashville. So soon as the state of things will justify, I would be pleased that General Carroll's brigade would support me in a forward movement.
P. S.—I should probably state to you more in detail what I telegraphed on the 15th, that I have information I think reliable that the enemy have no infantry nearer Cumberland Gap than London, where there are four regiments. They have about 200 cavalry at Barboursville. They have, I think, three regiments at Somerset, and are raising a fourth. They have a regiment at Crab Orchard, one at Rockcastle Camp, and one at Camp Dick Robinson. I suppose they have a regiment of cavalry at Somerset and near Monticello. My information is that six regiments, under General Nelson, advanced on Prestonburg, before whom Colonel Williams has retired through the Pound Gap.
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