Tuesday, January 20, 2026

Diary of Private Richard R. Hancock: Tuesday, May 20, 1862

We learned after dark that the Federals were at Burnsville. So McKnight's Company was sent out to re-enforce the picket on the Burnsville road. The company lay in ambush all night a few hundred yards behind the picket.* The rest of the battalion were sent out on other roads leading out in the direction of Burnsville and Glendale. But no enemy made their appearance.
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* How vivid "to my memory still" is that night! The pickets were stationed thus: B. A. Hancock, in front; W. W. Hawkins, a few paces to the rear; while I was a few paces to the rear of Hawkins. We expected to be relieved, as the custom was, in two hours. But we were very much disappointed and somewhat chagrined at having to sit there on our horses all that long night. Do not remember of doing the like any more during the war.

SOURCE: Richard R. Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee Confederate Cavalry, p. 170

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