D.. Buell to George H. Thomas, December 8, 1861

General GEoRGE H. THOMAS:

GENERAL: I have your letter of the 23d ultimo.* The same mail brought other letters, giving me sad accounts of that horrible night march from London.

You are still farther from Hast Tennessee than when I left you nearly six weeks ago. There is shameful wrong somewhere; I have not yet satisfied myself where. That movement so far has been disgraceful to the country and to all concerned. I feel a sense of personal degradation from my own connection with it greater than from any other part of my public actions. My heart bleeds for these Tennessee troops. I learn they have not yet been paid, and are left without either cavalry or artillery at London, and not per mitted to do what is their daily longing—go to the relief of their friends at home. With Nelson and the measles and blue-grass and nakedness and hunger and poverty and home-sickness, the poor fellows have had a bitter experience since they left their homes to serve a Government which as yet has hardly given them a word of kindly recognition. The soldiers of all the other States have a home government to look after them. These have not, and but for Carter, who has been like a father to them, they would have suffered still more severely. That they at times get discouraged and out of heart I do not wonder. My assurances to them have failed so often, that I should be ashamed to look them in the face.

Ihave not seen the newspaper strictures you refer to; but I can easily understand their character. Before I left the West I saw articles in the Cincinnati papers of a most mischievous character and tendency, and I thought I had arranged to have the writers hunted out and whipped; but I suppose it was not done. I mentioned the matter to General MeClellan one day. Said he, *Why does he not expel them from his camps?” A professed newspaper correspondent is a public nuisance and should be abated accordingly.

I cannot approve your determination simply to “obey orders.” “The country has conferred upon you high rank in her armies, and she has a right to expect that you will bring all your abilities to her aid in sustaining her flag. You do wrong in allowing personal indignities, come from what quarter they may, to diminish your activity in her service.

With renewed assurance of confidence and sympathy, I am,

very