Status - John Baer - 40th Indiana Regiment - Wood's Division
July 20th to 24th finds the Union armies still bedeviled by Confederate cavalry attacks and unable to keep the railroads operating consistently. Providing supplies to troops at various points is still difficult.
None of the dispatches during this time reveal any movements by Wood's division.
Below is a dispatch from General Buell regarding the situation:
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HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE OHIO,
Huntsville, Ala.,(via Nashville, Tenn.) July 22, 1862
Major-General HALLECK or
General THOMAS, Adjutant-General:
The enemy has thrown a large cavalry force, regular and irregular, upon our lines throughout Tennessee and Kentucky. The embarrassment from this is great. Small guards cannot protect them, and to give large ones would scatter my whole force. High water also has destroyed our bridges. From these two causes we have had to repeat our work, and it has been impossible to get either road open to Nashville.
Nashville is again threatened, and whether really in danger or not its security is a matter of too vital importance to be left in jeopardy, and I must keep force enough there to operate actively in that quarter and toward the east. But these cavalry raids can only be effectually counteracted by cavalry, of which there should be at least five, or, if possible, eight more regiments in the two States.
I am compelled to ascribe the greater part of our annoyance from geurilla bands to the spirit of hate and revenge which has been inspired on this quarter by and unwise policy and personal wrongs. I just learn that the enemy's cavalry in considerable force captured the guards - 80 men - and burned three bridges between Nashville and Murfreesborough yesterday. It will take eight days to rebuild them.
D. C. BUELL
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Elsewhere, President Lincoln is presenting the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet. Discussion and division over the Proclamation will delay its release for the balance of 1862.
Confederate General Bragg, having permanently relieved General Beauregard, has decided to move an army to Chattanooga and operate from there. General Bragg will arrive in Chattanooga, along with most of his army, by the end of the month.
More Information:
- Link: War Operations, see Volume XVI, Chapter XXVIII, Part II, Correspondence, pp. 193-211.
- The Civil War Day by Day, John S. Bowman, Ed. p. 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.
NEXT POST: JULY 28TH
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