July 20, 1862 - Sunday - 160 years ago today

 Status - John Baer - 40th Indiana Regiment - Wood's Division

On July 17th and 18th, Wood's division is being ordered to Winchester, TN, as part of a redeployment of forces to counter Confederate forces that are coming north from Chattanooga, and also looking for the cavalry of Nathan Bedford Forrest.  Protection of the line from Nashville to just north of Chattanooga (and of the railroad there) is of particular interest to General Buell.

Here is a dispatch from Wood describing the status on the 19th:

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SHELBYVILLE, July 19, 1862 

Col. J. B. FRY:

   Dispatch ordering me to send the battery with me and Jackson's cavalry to Murfreesborough to report to General Nelson is this moment received, as I was about marching to Winchester under the order received last night.  I have ordered the battery to proceed at once to Murfreesborough, and directed Colonel Wagner tp send an infantry force across from Wartrace to Murfreesborough turnpike, to escort the battery and put it under care of other troops and then return to Wartrace.  I cannot send Jackson's cavalry, as it is not with me.  Why it is not is fully explained in two communications.  Colonel Wagner with two regiments, a battery, and part of a battalion of cavalry will remain at Wartrace.  I am left without a single piece of artillery; not in any good condition to meet an enemy who may be provided with it.  The 7 wagons from Huntsville came up late last Monday night, 15th, and the supplies from Reynolds' Station in the afternoon of the 17th.  The latter were in a miserable condition; much lost by wasting.  Barrels and boxes broken, &c.

 TH. J. WOOD,

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Note that Wagner's brigade is the 21st, of which the 40th Indiana is a part.  So the 40th Indiana regiment is at Wartrace, TN at this point, an may or may not have been part of the escort of the battery noted above.

Wood is approaching Winchester, TN on July 20th and will arrive next day.  Wagner remains at Wartrace, for now.

More Information:

• Link: War Operations, see Volume XVI, Chapter XXVIII, Part II, Correspondence,  pp. 168-193.
• The Civil War Day by Day, John S. Bowman, Ed. pp. 76-77.
  
• Shelby Foote: The Civil War, A Narrative, Vol 1, Fort Sumter to Perryville, pp. 561-564. 
• Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol 3. The Tide Shifts, pp, 1-4
• Kenneth Noe, Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle, pp. 42-46.
  

 

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