August 29, 1862 - Friday - 160 years ago today

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

The wide dispersal of troops, combined with being unable to get a sense of where Bragg and the Confederate army are going, has caused Buell by the 29th to begin moving north, to Murfreesboro.  Here is a dispatch from Buell to General Halleck on August 29th.

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Decherd, TENN.,  August 29, 1862 -- 2 p. m.

Maj. Gen. H. W, Halleck

   Every day renders it the more evident that we must abandon our extensive lines and concentrate at some point nearer our base of supplies, perhaps Murfreesborough.  Our communications are interrupted almost daily and our detachments captured by superior numbers.  Our communications are not yet opened with Louisville,  and cannot be without putting a larger force on the road than can be spared.  I yield to this conviction with painful reluctance.  I cannot collect at any point this side of Murfreesborough more than 30,000 men, and from that would have to be deducted something for convoys.  It would be worse in advance of this point; and besides, the character of the roads and of the country makes it impossible to subsist ourselves in the mountains.  I am therefore preparing to concentrate at Murfreesborough.  I suppose General Grant's two divisions to have crossed the river, but I can get no information of their movements.  I sent a division to Altamont yesterday.  A flag of truce which went from it found the enemy's cavalry outpost about 11 miles.  His advance guard was supposed to be about 15 miles out.

D. C. BUELL. 

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Orders go out to collect as many divisions as possible at Murfreesboro by September 5th.

In Kentucky, things are very chaotic for the Union forces.  The only troops available are ones freshly arrived from Indiana and Ohio.  The are barely provisioned and are not ready for combat.  General Nelson organized them into brigades and moved them toward the onrushing Confederate army under General Kirby Smith, near Richmond, KY.  Another Union army under General George Morgan is at Cumberland Gap; Kirby Smith has left 9,000 troops in Morgan's front, and has another 12,000 moving toward Richmond.  

In the east, the campaign of Second Bull Run (Second Manassas) has come to a decisive battle.  General Lee and Stonewall Jackson are in combat with a Union army under General Pope.  General McClellan, having been brought north off the Peninsula, is also engaged.

More Information:

• Link: War Operations, see Volume XVI, Chapter XXVIII, Part II, Correspondence,  pp. 417-450.
• The Civil War Day by Day, John S. Bowman, Ed. pp. 79-80.
  
• Shelby Foote: The Civil War, A Narrative, Vol 1, Fort Sumter to Perryville, pp. 650-652. 
• Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol 3. The Tide Shifts, pp,4-7, 31-41.
• Kenneth Noe, Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle, pp. 32-59.

 

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