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366 Series I Volume IV- Serial 4 - Operations in the South and West

Page 366(Official Records Volume 4)  


OPERATIONS IN KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE. [CHAP.XII.

of North Carolina and Georgia, and the appointment of General F.K. Zollicoffer, of the Tennessee Army, to its command, as a brigadier of the Provisional Army. Governor Harris concurs in this earnestly.

L. POLK.

RICHMOND, July 9,1861.

Gov. ISHAM G. HARRIS, Nashville, Tenn.:

The President directs me to request that you will order two Tennessee regiment either to Jonesborough or Haynesville, in East Tennessee, as soon as possible.

L.P. WALKER.

RICHMOND, July 11,1861.

Gov. ISHAM G. HARRIS, Nashville, Tenn.:

I have not heard from you in reply about sending two regiments in East Tennessee, nor whether you will send any here. If possible, I hope you will do so, as they are needed absolutely.

L.P. WALKER.

NASHVILLE, July 11,1861.

HonorableL.P. WALKER:

Your telegram of the 9th received to-day. I send two regiments East to-morrow.

ISHAM G. HARRIS.

MEESVILLE, BRADLEY COUNTY, TENNESSEE, July 11,1861.

President DAVIS:

SIR: When I had the honor of an interview with you at Richmond last week I endeavored, together with other gentlemen from East Tennessee then accompanying me, to impress you with the absolute necessity existing in this division of our State for prompt and effective action to repress a most fearful rebellion against both the authorities of the State and Confederate States. I returned a day or two since to Knoxville, and came thence to this place in a southern border county of East Tennessee to meet my family.

The startling state of the public mind in this county, lying as it does upon the Georgia boundary, impels me to again importune your early attention in some effective manner to this section of the South. It is fortunate that we are not now left to conjecture the purposes of the Union men in East Tennessee who are in arms, or the probable number of them in this county. On Sunday, July 7, an alarm was given that a troops of secessionists had entered the county to disarm the Union men. By some means unknown to our friends here, in twelve hours near 1,000 Union men were in arms at different rendezvous, and disclosed a most complete organization, secret hitherto in its character and numbers. The alarm proving to proceed from a mere jest, the party immediately dissolved, only to hold themselves in readiness, at like short notice, to rally again with their rifles and shot-guns and with such ammunition as they have.

I must assure you that from the Georgia line to Cumberland Gap a