Unknown to Don Carlos Buell, January 4, 1862
Saint Louis, January 4, 1862.
Brig. Gen. D. C. BUELL: S DS. I have no other information than that sent, which was in the exact words received. General Smith can perhaps give you more particulars. G. W. CULLUM, Brigadier-General, Chief of Staff.
CoLuMBUS, Ky., January 4, 1862. General GEORGE H. THOMAS:
I send you the inclosed, which has justreached me. It is from one of the most reliable men in Kentucky, cashier of the Branch Bank of Louisville at Burkesville: /
The recent rains will raise the river so that Zollicoffer cannot be re-enforced for several days, and by a rapid movement upon him his forces on this side the river might be cut off and captured before aid could be thrown across to him, and then the reenforcements could be met and also cut off or driven back, The rise in the river will temporarily destroy their floating bridge.
In haste, respectfully, THO. E. BRAMLETTE, Colonel Third Regiment Kentucky Volunteers.
WASHINGTON, January 4, 1862. General BUELL:
Have arms gone forward for East Tennessee? Please tell me the progress and condition of the movement in that direction. Answer. A. LINCOLN.
LOUISVILLE, KY., January 5, 1862. To the PRESIDENT:
Arms can only go forward for East Tennessee under the protection of an army. My organization of the troops has had in view two columns with reference to that movement: a division to move from Lebanon and a brigade to operate offensively or defensively, according to cireumstances, on the Cumberland Gap route; but it was necessary also to have regard to contingencies which, before the transportation, arms, &c., could be ready, might require a modification of the plan. The ~ time and manner of the movement must still be subject to such contingencies, though I hope to inaugurate it very soon. Our transportation and other preparations have been delayed far beyond my expectations and are still incomplete. The armsâforeign ones, requiring repairsâ arrived a week or more ago, and are now being put in order by the ordnance officer.
While my preparations have had this movement constantly in view I will eonfess to your excellency that I have been bound to it more by my sympathy for the people of East Tennessee and the anxiety with which you and the General-in-Chief have desired it than by my opinion of its wisdom as an unconditional measure. As earnestly as I wish to accomWASHINGTON, Monday, January 6, 1862. Brig. Gen. D. C. BUELL, Louisville, Ky.:
My DEAR GENERAL: You will have learned ere this that. Colonel Cross has been ordered to relieve Colonel Swords, and that two or three active young quartermasters from the Regular Army have been ordered to report to you. Two hundred wagons from Philadelphia have been ordered to you, and Meigs is stirring up the country generally to procure means of transportation for you. There are few things I have more at heart than the prompt movement ef a strong column into Eastern Tennessee. The political consequences of the delay of this movement will be much more serious than you seem to anticipate. If relief is not soon afforded those people we shall lose them entirely, and with them the power of inflicting the most severe blow upon the secession cause.
I was extremely sorry to learn from your telegram to the President that you bad from the beginning attached little or no importance to a movement in East Tennessee.* I had not so understood your views, – and it develops a radical difference between your views and my own, which I deeply regret.
My own general plans for the prosecution of the war make the speedy occupation of East Tennessee and its lines of railway matters of absolute necessity. Bowling Green and Nashville are in that connection of very secondary importance at the present moment. My own advance cannot, according to my present views, be made until your troops are solidly ‘established i in the eastern portion of Tennessee. If thatás not possible, a complete and prejudicial change in my own plans at once becomes necessary.
Interesting as Nashville may be to the Louisville interests, it strikes me that its possession is of very secondary importance in comparison with the immense results that would arise from the adherence to our cause of the masses in East Tennessee, West North Carolina, South Carolina, North Georgia, and Alabama, results that I feel assured would ere Jong flow from the movement I allude to.
Halleck, from his own account, will not soon be in a condition to support properly a movement up the Cumberland. Why not make the movement independently of and without waiting for that?
I regret that I have not strength enough to write a fuller and more intelligible letter, but this is my very first effort at writing for somewhat more than two weeks.
In haste, my dear general, very truly, yours, GEO. B. McOLELLAN, Major-General, Commanding.
*See Buell to McClellan, January 13, 1862, p. 548.