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

Brigadier-General Felix K. Zollicoffer to Samuel Cooper, September 14, 1861

KNOXVILLE, September 14, 1861.

Adjutant-General COOPER:

Governor Harris and General Buckner telegraphed me if possible to arrest the movement of which I apprised you on the 10th.* It is too late to arrest. To withdraw would be unfortunate, unless the Federal forces which menace us will agree to withdraw. I have informed Governor Magoffin through Governor Harris I will withdraw on this condition.

F. K. ZOLLICOFFER,        

Brigadier-General.

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* Not Found; but see Zollicoffer to Johnston, September 16, p. 194

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 4 (Serial No. 4), p. 190

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: March 4, 1864

Bright and frosty in the morning; warm and cloudy in the afternoon. The enemy have disappeared.

On the 17th inst., Gen. Lee wrote the Secretary of War that he had received a letter from Gen. Longstreet, asking that Pickett's Division be in readiness to join him; also that a brigade of Gen. Buckner's Division, at Dalton, be sent him at once. He says the force immediately in front of him consists of the 4th, 11th, 9th, and 23d corps, besides a large body of cavalry from Middle Tennessee. Gen. Lee says the railroad from Chattanooga to Knoxville, being about completed, will enable the enemy to combine on either Johnston or Longstreet. He (Gen. Lee) says, however, that the 4th and 11th corps are small, and may have been consolidated; the 23d also is small; but he does not know the strength of the enemy. He thinks Pickett's Division should be sent as desired, and its place filled with troops from South Carolina, etc., where operations will probably soon cease. The Secretary sent this to the President. The President sent it back to-day, indorsed, “How can Pickett's Division be replaced? – J. D.”

Henly's Battalion returned this evening; and Custis can resume his school, unless he should be among the list doomed to the rank in the field, for which he is physically incapable, as Surgeon Garnett, the President's physician, has certified.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 165-6