Today in History:

527 Series I Volume XXIII-I Serial 34 - Tullahoma Campaign Part I

Page 527 Chapter XXXV. THE MIDDLE TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN.

them. No doubt can be entertained that he has withdrawn his entire army from Middle Tennessee. There may be a few prowling bands of cavalry left, but nothing else of the large army that so lately in Middle Tennessee formed the command of General Bragg.

It has not been the good fortune of my division during this brief campaign to render any distinguished service or participate in any important action, but it affords me much satisfaction to bear testimony to the untiring zeal and energy displayed by the men and officers of all grades on a most laborious march, the promptness with which every duty was performed, whether in camp or on the march, and the light-hearted cheerfulness with which every labor and privation were met.

My thanks are especially due, and are most cordially awarded, to my brigade commanders-Brigadier General G. D. Wagner, commanding Second Brigade; Colonel C. G. Harker, Sixty-fifth Ohio, commanding Third Brigade, and Colonel G. P. Buell, Fifty-eighth Indiana, commanding First Brigade-for their hearty, zealous, and intelligent aid and co-operation under all circumstances. I commend them to our common seniors in ranks as officers worthy of the highest distinction. I take great pleasure in commending to the kind consideration of higher authority the officers of my personal staff, consisting of Captain M. P. Bestow, assistant adjutant-general; Lieutenant J. L. Yaryan, Fifty-eighth Indiana Volunteers, and Lieutenant George Shaffer, Ninety-third Ohio Volunteers, aides-de-camp; Lieutenant Colonel T. R. Palmer, Thirteenth Michigan Volunteers, inspector-general; Surg. W. W. Blair, medical director; Captain L. D. Myers, assistant quartermaster; Captain James McDonald, commissary of subsistence; Captain W. McLoughlin, Thirteenth Michigan Volunteers, topographical engineer; Captain John E. George, assistant commissary of musters; Captain M. Keiser, Sixty-fourth Ohio Volunteers, provost-marshal, and Lieutenant P. Haldeman, Third Kentucky Volunteers, ordnance officer. They all rendered me invaluable service.

In the outset of this report I have remarked that the order directing the army to prepare for the march required a certain amount of subsistence and forage to be transported, but in the matter of baggage the movement was ordered to be as light as possible. I have also stated with considerable minuteness of detail the allowance of transportation. I permitted my division to carry out the requirements of the order. I allowed 6 wagons to the weaker and 7 to the stronger regiments. The remaining wagons of the division, with the baggage not allowed to be taken on the march, were parked under cover of the fortifications at Murfreesborough. The neglect of other commanders in this army to conform to this order of preparation and the consequent embarrassment of the movements on the march, and the retardation of the concentration of the troops at Manchester, caused by the immense and overloaded baggage trains which they took with them, called from the commanding general of the army at Manchester, under date of the 28th of June, an order, in which he animadverts with great, but, as I conceive, just severity on the criminal neglect of officers in this respect. In that order he fixes the allowance of wagons per regiment at 7. By a reference to the allowance I permitted to my regiments, it will be perceived that my division deserved no part of the censure leveled at the troops. The order had been obeyed by it before leaving Murfreesborough. My military studies and experience have long since taught me that celerity is the soul of military movements. They have further more taught me that the most happily conceived combinations may be thwarted by sumptuous baggage trains, which cripple all efficiency of movement, and whose cargoes only serve to enervate the morale of the army.


Page 527 Chapter XXXV. THE MIDDLE TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN.