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many as you need. I see an article in an Indianapolis CHAP. III. newspaper denouncing me for not answering your letter sent by a special messenger two or three weeks ago. did make what I thought the best answer I could to that letter. As I remember, it asked for ten heavy guns to be distributed, with some troops, at Lawrenceburgh, Madison, New Albany, and Evansville; and I ordered the guns and directed you to send the troops, if you had them. As to Kentucky, you do not estimate that State as more important than I do, but I am compelled to watch all points. While I write this I am, if not in range at least in hearing of cannon-shot from an army of enemies more than 100,000 strong. I do not expect them to capture this city; but I know they would if I were to send the men and arms from here to defend Louisville, of which there is not a single hostile armed soldier within forty miles, nor any force known to be moving upon it from any distance. It is true the army in our front may make a half-circle around southward and move on Louisville, but when they do we will make a half-circle around northward and meet them; and in the mean time we will get up what forces we can from other sources to also meet them.

I hope Zollicoffer has left Cumberland Gap (though I fear he has not) because, if he has, I rather infer he did it because of his dread of Camp Dick Robinson, reënforced from Cincinnati, moving on him, than because of his intention to move on Louisville. But if he does go round and reënforce Buckner, let Dick Robinson come round and reënforce Sherman, and the thing is substantially as it was when Zollicoffer left Cumberland Gap. I state this as an illustration; for, in fact, I think if the Gap is left open to us Dick Robinson should take it and hold it; while Indiana and the vicinity of Louisville in Kentucky can reënforce Sherman faster than Zollicoffer can Buckner..

The conjectures of the President proved substantially correct. Moreover, great as was the need of arms for Union regiments, the scarcity among the rebels was much greater. Of the 30,000 stands

Lincoln to
Morton,
Sept. 29,
1861. MS.

CHAP. III. Which Johnston asked for when he assumed command, the rebel War Department could only send him 1000; ammunition and supplies were equally wanting; he called out 50,000 volunteers from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas, but reënforcements from this and other sources were slow. His greatest immediate help came by transferring Major-General William J. Hardee with his division from Missouri to Bowling Green. If, as Sherman surmised, a concentration of his detachments would have enabled him to make a successful march on Louisville, he was unwilling to take the risk. The contingency upon which the rebel invasion was probably based, the expected rising in Kentucky, had completely failed. "We have received but little accession," he wrote to Richmond, "to our ranks since the Confederate forces crossed the line; in fact, no such enthusiastic demonstration as to Benjamin, justify any movements not warranted by our ability to maintain our own communications." "The Kentuckians still come in small squads," wrote one of his recruiting brigadiers; "I have induced the most of them to go in for the war. This requires about three speeches a day. When thus stirred up, they go almost to a man. Since I have found

Johnston to

Oct. 22, 1861.
W. R. Vol.
IV., p. 469.

Alcorn to

Oct. 21, 1861.

that I can't be a general, I have turned recruiting Buckner, agent and sensation speaker for the brief period Ibid., p. 467. that I shall remain." For the present Johnston's policy was purely defensive; he directed Cumberland Gap to be fortified, and completed the works Cooper, at Columbus, "to meet the probable flotilla from Ibid., p. 436. the North, supposed to carry two hundred heavy Buckner, guns"; while Buckner was vigorously admonished Ibid., p. 487. to "hold on to Bowling Green." He made this

Johnston to

Oct. 4, 1861.

Mackall to

Oct. 4, 1861.

Johnston to
Cooper,

order when Buckner had six thousand men; but CHAP. III. even when that number was doubled, after the arrival of Hardee, Johnston was occupied with calculations for defense, and was asking for further reënforcements.

Oct. 17, 1861.
IV., p. 456.

W. R. Vol.

CHAPTER IV

CHAP. IV.

TH

EAST TENNESSEE

HE loyalty of Andrew Johnson and his energetic defense of the Union in the Senate of the United States called public attention with peculiar force to Eastern Tennessee. Nominally, the whole State was in rebellion; really, nearly one-third of its people, occupying about one-third of its territory, remained firm in their attachment to the Government. By repeated public conventions, by a solemn appeal to the Legislature, and an overwhelming popular vote, the region known as East Tennessee protested against the usurpation and military domination which made them, against their will, aliens and enemies to the Constitution and flag they revered. At an election held on the 8th day of June, 1861, at which the people were asked to ratify the military league with the Southern Confederacy and the Provisional Constitution of the Confederate States, twenty-nine counties of of Tennes- Eastern Tennessee cast only 14,780 votes for sepapp. 532-534. ration and 32,923 votes against separation. Still further, when the rebel Governor ordered an election, on the first Thursday in August, for delegates to the rebel congress (that being the day fixed by the State constitution and laws for electing Representatives to the Congress of the United States), the

Goodspeed,

"History

see,"

D. W. Bartlett,

Union electors in the second and fourth districts CHAP. IV. cast their ballots for Horace Maynard and Andrew J. Clements in such numbers (estimated at 10,000 «Contested votes in the second and at 2000 votes in the fourth) that they were admitted to seats as Representatives in the Thirty-seventh Congress.

The people of East Tennessee, finding no redress in petition or ballot, gave signs of a determination to liberate themselves by force of arms. Upon unmistakable evidence of their loyalty, the Lincoln Government made efforts to render them all possible assistance. A considerable supply of arms and ammunition was sent to Lieutenant William Nelson in Kentucky to be forwarded to the Unionists in East Tennessee, and another navy lieutenant, S. P. Carter, was commissioned specially to organize Union regiments of Tennesseeans willing to enlist; this, however, was a work of no little trouble and danger. Transportation was extremely difficult over the long mountain route without a railroad. The rebel authorities were constantly watchful of this weak point in their offensive and defensive plans. From the first, Governor Harris treated East Tennessee as a hostile and conquered country, and his successive letters to Jefferson Davis form a continuous call for additional military force to hold that region in subjection.' The

1 "Twelve or fourteen thousand men in East Tennessee would crush out rebellion there without firing a gun, while a smaller force may involve us in scenes of blood that will take long years to heal. We can temporize with the rebellious spirit of that people no longer. If you can order a sufficient number of troops from

States south of us to that point, the
adoption of a decided and ener-
getic policy (which I am resolved
upon so soon as I have a suffi-
cient force to sustain it), the ar-
rest and indictment for treason
of the ringleaders, will give per-
fect peace and quiet to that divi-
sion of our State in the course of
two months."

Elections

in

Congress,"

pp. 367, 368.

Harris to
Walker,

August 16,

1861. W. R. Vol.

IV., p. 389.

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