Diary of Private Richard R. Hancock: Tuesnday, December 17, 1861

Zollicoffer wrote to General A. S. Johnston thus:

Had the reserve of Powell's Regiment, Wood's Battalion and McClung's Battery been sent on, as I ordered, I could have advanced. But I can hear nothing official from Knoxville of them.

 

For a day or two past my information leads to the suspicion that the enemy contemplate an early attack upon this position.¹

It will be remembered that Powell's Regiment was detached from the brigade at Jacksborough and sent to Knoxville to help guard the railroad. Colonel Wood's Battalion — Sixteenth Alabama — was left at Knoxville — when Zollicoffer started on his first campaign into Kentucky.

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¹ Rebellion Records, Vol. VII., p. 773 .

SOURCE: Richard R. Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee Confederate Cavalry, p. 99