CHAPTER XIII

AB

PERRYVILLE AND MURFREESBORO

BOUT midsummer of 1862, the Confederates CH. XIII. disposed of their strongest forces, and exhibited their greatest energy, along the entire line of operations from the Atlantic coast to the region West of the Mississippi. Larger armies than they were ever again able to raise made head against McClellan in Virginia, opposed Morgan at Cumberland Gap, Buell in Middle Tennessee, and Grant on the northern border of Mississippi. Nowhere did the Union armies make any considerable impression upon the strongly held Confederate lines. If there was one object dearer to the heart of the President than any other it was the occupation of East Tennessee and the liberation of the loyal population of that region from a peculiarly cruel and galling tyranny. This object he had constantly pressed upon the attention of General Halleck, who had in turn urged it upon General Buell. After Halleck had been transferred to Washington to take command of the army, he still persistently kept the President's wishes before the eyes of the commander of the Army of the Cumberland. Buell was not lacking, either in ability or any other soldierly quality; but VOL. VI.-18

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CH. XIII. he never seemed to appreciate the vast importance of the movement which the Government was thus constantly crowding upon his attention. At least, the difficulties in the way of its accomplishment were to him so much more evident than the advantages to be derived from it, that he wore away the whole summer in untiring and most elaborate preparations for a march for which he never got ready. The difficulties were undeniably of the most serious character; a line of discouraging length had to be constructed and defended from Nashville to the Tennessee River at Bridgeport, by which to provision the army as it advanced, and this was exposed to constant interruption from the cavalry of the enemy, at this time greatly superior to Buell's and led by those bold and enterprising troopers, Morgan and Forrest. The summer passed away in labors and skirmishes leading to no result, until at last Bragg, by a movement of remarkable audacity, took the initiative out of Buell's hands, and, by a swift and stealthy advance into Kentucky, forced his antagonist to give up all present hope of taking Chattanooga and to devote himself to the defense of Kentucky.

1862.

General Bragg moved northward through Tennessee into Kentucky in the early part of September. He had previously sent General Kirby Smith with a force of 12,000 men by way of Cumberland Gap into Eastern Kentucky. On the 29th of August Smith met on his advance northward an inferior force, under General William Nelson, which he defeated. Nelson, falling back to Louisville, proceeded energetically to organize a new body of troops, composed of the small garrison of that place and the

1862.

newly arrived levies of volunteers and of improvised сH. XIII. organizations of citizens. Smith came rapidly northward, occupied the city of Lexington, and threatened both Louisville and Cincinnati with strong detachments. On the 6th of September General Henry Heth, with 6000 troops, took position only a few miles south of Covington, the Kentucky suburb of Cincinnati. This advance produced the greatest excitement and not a little consternation throughout the West. It was Heth's belief that he could have taken Cincinnati, but this course would have been in direct contravention of Smith's orders. After a few days Heth rejoined his chief, and on the 4th of October Smith, with all his troops in hand, reported to Bragg at Frankfort.

When the movement of the Confederate forces began General Buell was of the opinion that it would be directed against Nashville and Western Tennessee, and this was doubtless the course which Bragg, if he had been wisely counseled, would have chosen; but he was beguiled at this moment with the same dream which twice led General Lee into serious trouble in the East. He imagined that Kentucky was lying in unwilling submission to the tyranny of Lincoln, and he fancied he was to effect the liberation of that State, and its complete incorporation among the States of the Confederacy. Kentucky once possessed and held, Tennessee would require no further effort on the part of the Confederates to hold it securely with the South. His army took with them the means of arming the great accessions of troops which they expected from the young men of Kentucky, and the fact that he came back from this expedition with a smaller num