Charles F. Smith to James B. Fry, November 23, 1861

To the ASSISTANT ADJUTANT-GENERAL,

SIR: I have just answered General Halleck’s telegram* in relation to Hardee’s supposed purpose of crossing the Ohio between the Wabash and the Cumberland. I have said :

My last information was that 2,000 men, with three field guns, were at Princeton,

running off hogs—plundering generally. I have sent the gunboat Conestoga to gain information and watch the Ohio.

*Of November 22, p. 444.

One of the three points of attack to be made simultaneously on this place, it has always been understood, is to be by the Tennessee or Cumberland, or both. The idea has military merit. What renders it probable (whenever the attack is to come off) is thatthe’enemy is constructing one or more gunboats far up the Cumberland, and at Sandy Creek, up the Tennessee, some 8 miles beyond the State line, he has been converting river steamers (two or three) into iron-plated gunboats, to be heavily armed. This river side is my weak point.

‘The inhabitants in the counties east of the Cumberland and bordering on the river are much alarmed, and send messages that a force is coming, &c.; but heretofore it has been marauding parties merely, and latterly the increase of force is, I think, more to sweep the country of provisions without risk than from any idea of crossing the river. They want the means of transportation to do so.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,