HEADQUARTERS EAST TENNESSEE BRIGADE,
Camp Calvert, November 25, 1861.
Hon. HORACE MAYNARD:
MY DEAR SIR: A day or two after I wrote you I received
orders to break up at this place and join General Thomas. I had sent on a
portion of our sick to Crab Orchard and a portion of our commissary stores, but
fortunately I was unable to obtain wagons enough to move the whole and was
detained until this morning, when I received other orders from department
headquarters to remain at London. I know not what will be the next move, but
hope most sincerely it may be towards Eastern Tennessee. If something is not
done, and that speedily, our people will be cut up and ruined. A column should
be ordered to move into Eastern Tennessee, one detailed for that purpose and no
other, to go without reference to any other movement, with the specific object
of relieving our people, simply on account of their loyalty and as though it
were entirely disconnected with any military advantages. I intend to say that
our people deserve protection and should have it at once, and independently of
all outside considerations.
I sent on 21st between 600 and 700 men, under
Lieutenant-Colonel Spears, to Flat Lick, a point 8 miles below Cumberland Ford,
for the purpose of obtaining information of the enemy, and with the hope they
would fall in with a portion of them and cut them up. Some of our men went
nearly to the Ford. None of the rebels were there. From best information the
force at the Gap was only about 2,000. Zollicoffer, with some 6,000, was at
Ross, in Anderson County.
If we had a battery I believe we could go into Tennessee,
and then, if we could carry arms or even powder and lead to furnish to our
people, I believe we could stay there.
Will help ever come? I do not mean contingent aid, but
special and direct.
We are getting along well. Most of our men have returned who
left on night of 13th, and all are elated at the orders to remain here. If it
be possible, have it so arranged that the Eastern Tennesseeans shall not again,
except in case of urgent and pressing necessity, be ordered back towards
Central Kentucky. Many would sooner perish in battle than turn their backs
towards the Tennessee line again.
Will you please write me if the President has ever acted on
the petition which you forwarded from the officers of the two regiments to
commission me as brigadier-general, and, if so, the reason for his
non-compliance, as well as what you can learn of his intentions in regard to
that matter.With best wishes, I am, yours, very truly,
S. P. CARTER
[ Indorsement. ]
DECEMBER 3, 1861.
Please read and consider this letter.
A. L.
SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A
Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies,
Series I, Volume 7 (Serial No. 7), p. 469-70