Diary of Private Richard R. Hancock: Monday, May 12, 1862

There was a great deal of talk and excitement in the battalion about reorganizing for three years, or during the war, under a new law that the Confederate Congress had lately passed, known as the "conscript law." The expiration of our enlistment, twelve months, was now near at hand, and the question was, Shall we re-enlist or quit and go home?

As our company had a number of acquaintances in Colonel E. S. Smith's Regiment of cavalry, which was then thought to be in Tennessee, north of the Tennessee River, not far from Chattanooga, and as we were wanting to get back nearer home, Captain Allison sent M. W. McKnight and B. A. Hancock to Corinth to take a petition to General Beal. In said petition we requested the transfer of our company to the above named regiment. General Beal seemed to be favorable to our petition, but said that he would have to wait until he could find out the condition of Smith's Regiment before he could grant our request. In the meantime, however, we learned that Smith's Regiment was "bursted up," so that was the end of our petition.

SOURCE: Richard R. Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee Confederate Cavalry, pp. 167-8