Diary of Private Richard R. Hancock: Saturday, February 8, 1862

Passing Chestnut Mound, our company put up for the night one mile beyond. The rest of the battalion remained near Chestnut Mound.

Under the above date the Secretary of War, J. P. Benjamin, wrote to General A. S. Johnston as follows:

We have ordered to Knoxville three Tennessee regiments (Vaughn's, Maney's and Bate's), the First Georgia Regiment and four regiments from General Bragg's command to be forwarded by him.

 

The whole force in East Tennessee will thus amount, as we think, to at least fifteen regiments, and the President desires that you assign the command to General Buckner.¹

 

The formation of this new army for Eastern Tennessee will leave General Crittenden's army free to act with your center.

 

The President thinks it best to break up the army of General Crittenden, demoralized by its defeat, and that you should distribute the forces composing it among other troops. You can form a new command for General Crittenden, connected with your own corps, in such manner as you may deem best.

 

General Crittenden has demanded a court of inquiry, and it has been ordered; but from all the accounts which now reach us we have no reason to doubt his skill or conduct in his recent movements, and feel convinced that it is not to any fault of his that the disaster at Somerset (Fishing Creek) is to be attributed.²

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¹ Major-General E. K. Smith was sent to East Tennessee. General Buckner surrendered with the garrison at Fort Donelson, February 16th.

² Rebellion Records, Vol. VII., p. 862.

SOURCE: Richard R. Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee Confederate Cavalry, p. 130-1