Today in History:

337 Series I Volume XXXII-III Serial 59 - Forrest's Expedition Part III

Page 337 Chapter XLIV. CORRESPONDENCE,ETC. - UNION.


HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF MEMPHIS, Memphis, Tenn., April 12, 1864.

Colonel I. G. KAPPNER:

SIR: You will send with all possible dispatch the Fifty-fifth United States [colored], with four days' rations, or as much as they can carry in their haversacks, to re-enforce Fort Pillow. The men will take 40 rounds of ammunition in cartridge-boxes, and you will send 100 rounds extra on wagons to the boat. They will embark at the earliest moment on the steamer Glendale, or such other boat as may be furnished by quartermaster's department. Promptness is all important.

By order of Brigadier-General Buckland:

ALF. G. TUTHER,
Captain and Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.


HEADQUARTERS SIXTEENTH ARMY CORPS, Memphis, Tenn., April 12, 1864.

OFFICER COMMANDING FORCE FOR FORT PILLOW [Through Brigadier General R. P. Buckland]:

COLONEL: You will proceed as rapidly as possible by steamer to Fort Pillow and re-enforce the garrison there. With this addition, and the great natural strength of the place, you should be able to hold it. Two gun-boats will be there, with whom you will communicate before landing. Immediately upon landing ascertain as nearly as you can from Major Booth the precise state of affairs, and send report to Cairo and here.

If you find on approaching Fort Pillow that it has unfortunately been taken, you will request the officer of the gun-boat to reconnoiter as closely as possible, and develop some accurate idea of the strength of the enemy, and return. If you succeed in re-enforcing the fort in time it must be held at all hazards and to the last man. Report immediately and by every boat that passes.

Your obedient servant,

S. A. HURLBUT,

Major-General.

[APRIL 12, 1864.-For Grant to Rosecrans, about sending transportation to Sherman's army, see Vol. XXXIV, Part III, p.145.]

SPECIAL FIELD ORDERS, HDQRS. DEPT. OF THE CUMBERLAND,


No. 103. Chattanooga, April 12, 1864.

* * * * *

XII. Major General L. H. Rousseau, commanding District of Nashville, will, without delay, relieve the Twenty-third Regiment Missouri Volunteers, the Eighty-fifth Indiana Volunteers, and the detachment of the Thirty-third Indiana, along the line of the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, by troops from the garrison at Nashville as far as Murfreesborough, and the troops from the garrison of Murfreesborough as far as the place known as Kelley's Camp, 2 1/2 miles north of Bell Buckle, placing detachments at the points and of the strength named in the inclosed list.*

Upon being relieved, the Twenty-third Missouri will proceed to

---------------

*Not found; but see Whipple's statement, p. 290.

---------------

22 R R-VOL XXXII, PT III


Page 337 Chapter XLIV. CORRESPONDENCE,ETC. - UNION.