The First Battalion
had the honor of going on dress parade in the presence of Major-General George
B. Crittenden, who had arrived at Mill Springs and assumed command on the 3d
instant.
Colonel S. Powell's
Regiment (Twenty-ninth Tennessee) came with General Crittenden, and I think a
part of Colonel M. White's Regiment (Thirty-seventh Tennessee), of Carroll's
Brigade, arrived at the same time.
Good news! good
news! A small steamboat, the “Noble Ellis,” has arrived at Mill Springs loaded
with army stores, coffee, sugar, molasses, etc.
General Boyle, who
had returned to Columbia and was now in command of Eleventh Brigade, wrote as
follows to General Thomas, Lebanon, Kentucky:
A
rebel steamboat passed Burkesville yesterday (6th) at twelve o'clock, loaded
with men and cannon and other arms, clothing, etc.
I
send three hundred cavalry to heights on this side to intercept it, if
possible. I will move with three hundred of Third Kentucky and Nineteenth Ohio
to an advantageous position at the mouth of Renick's Creek, two and a half
miles above Burkesville, on the Cumberland. I shall move the whole force here
to Burkesville. It is only four miles further from Glasgow than Columbia.
I
am not willing to see the Cumberland surrendered without a struggle to
Zollicoffer and the rebel invaders.
We
have no cannon, and must rely on our rifles to take off the men from the boats.
With one piece of artillery the boats could be torn to atoms or sunk.
Can
you not send me a section of a battery?*
Fortunately for us,
Boyle did not stop our boat.
* Rebellion Records,
Vol. VII. p. 535.
