Today in History:

435 Series I Volume XXX-III Serial 52 - Chickamauga Part III

Page 435 Chapter XLII. CORRESPONDENCE,ETC.-UNION.

ville, another the old State road, and the third through Manchester. I did this for a better supply of water and forage, and also to reconnoiter on the Manchester line in case thy should be inclined to trouble my left and rear from that region, not far from which they generally make raids from Western Virginia. The above for your information. All my columns concentrated at Flat Lick in the same hour.

JOHN F. DE COURCY,

Colonel, Commanding.

BARBOURSVILLE, KY., September 7, 1863.

Brigadier-General POTTER:

My sick are filling the houses in my rear, and I have no surgeons or medicines to leave with them. Dr. Wilson can inform you that I foretold this and some of the other disasters which must take place on this line of operations unless commissary, quartermaster's, and medical departments work in a different fashion from what they are now doing.

JOHN F. DE COURCY,

Colonel, Commanding.

CUMBERLAND FORD, September 7, 1863.

Brigadier-General POTTER:

My force is all across the Cuberland River. My spies just in say that the enemy is very busy preparing to defend the gap. Just received a telegram informing me that there are no trains with rations or ammunition for me, and the commissary and quartermaster officers at Crab Orchard have not been sober for many days. The telegram further state that I must not depend upon receiving supplies from either Camp Nelson or Crab Orchard, so long as the men now in these two places remain there. What is to be done? My men will begin to get sick before many hours for want of bread. Little corn here, and I have only ammunition enough to bluster with and persuade the enemy to evacuate or capitulate if he be so inclined, but I cannot make a serious attack. If the enemy is disposed and strong enough to resist, I do not intend to retire until compelled, but the commissary and quartermasters have put a retreat on my cards.

JOHN F. DE COURCY,

Colonel, Commanding Brigade.

CUMBERLAND FORD, September 7, 1863.

General POTTER:

The commissary at Crab Orachard telegraphs that there is no subsistence on the way for my troop. Will your order any troops that may be coming up in rear to unload their wagons of everything but hard bread and ammunition for .58 and .54 caliber, and send on to me these things with utmost dispatch? From Cumberland Ford to


Page 435 Chapter XLII. CORRESPONDENCE,ETC.-UNION.