Today in History:

27 Series I Volume XLIX-I Serial 103 - Mobile Bay Campaign Part I

Page 27 NORTH ALABAMA AND EAST TENNESSEE.

4.30 p. m., directed Major-General Wood to march his division for Greenville, to start at 7 a. m. to-morrow, and when he arrives there to push his advance posts well out toward Jonesborough, and to hire scouts to get all information possible of the movements of the enemy; also directed General Wood to furnish all possible aid to the parties reconstructing the railroad. General Wood will take eight days' rations and forage. 7 p. m. Conrad's transportation has all arrived at Bull's Gap. This is the last transportation of the Second Division which was left behind. all of the troops and material of the corps now at the front. The railroad bridge finished over Lick Creek to-day, and the construction party will work on the Swan Pond trestle-work to-morrow.

April 4.-5 a. m., Artillery Brigade starts for Blue Springs. 6 a. m., General Elliott's division (Second) starts for Blue Springs. 7 a. m., General Wood's division (Third) starts for Greenville. The Artillery Brigade and Second Division will reach Blue Springs at about 11 a. m., and the Third Division will reach Greeneville, about twenty miles, at 5 p. m. Work progressing rapidly on the railroad to-day.

April 5.-Nothing of importance occurred to-day. The railroad track is now laid to and a shout distance beyond Swan Pond. The trestle work at said pond will move corps headquarters to Greeneville to-morrow.

April 6. 2 a. m., Major Steele, aide-de-camp, returned from Colonel Kirby's expedition to Asheville; has just returned . He reports that Colonel K[irby] will reach Asheville to-day; that the roads for thirty-five miles or more this side of the town are blockaded with timber, and that the place is defended by about 2,000 men under command of the rebel General Vance; that there are strong earth-work and eighteen pieces of artillery in position. 8 a. m., telegraphed to General Wood at Greenville-also sent order by orderly-to send one brigade at once to Warm Springs, about fifty miles this side of Asheville, to support Colonel Kirby. Colonel Kirby has been instructed not to attack the enemy unless he can do so with every prospect of success. 10 a. m., corps headquarters started for Greenville. 1 p. m., at Blue Springs received dispatch from Brigadier-General Tillson, which was dated Month of Roane's Creek, Tenn., April 3, 1865, in which he says to General Stanley that he arrived at that place at 10 a. m.; that he has located and entrenched a camp there, and in the morning will send the Second and Third North Carolina Mounted Infantry, under Colonel Kirk, to Boone in the morning for the purposes mentioned in General Stoneman's letter of the 31st ultimo. He will also place the Fourth Tennessee Infantry and a battalion of the First U. S. Colored Artillery at Taylorsville, to hold the roads and mountain passes near there, and then he will proceed to Boone and Deep and Watauga Gaps to make preparations to defend those places. He says that it is impossible almost to live off the country in which he is. 3 p. m., corps headquarters arrived at Greenville. Major-General Wood sent Betty's brigade of his division to Jonesborough yesterday as an advance post, and he directed General Beatty to send shouts into Virginia to get any information that he could of the movements of the enemy. No news from Kirby this evening. The construction party is pushing the railroad forward as rapidly as possible.

GREENVILLE, EAST TENN.

April 7.- 11 a. m., received the news of Sheridan's victory at Burkeville Junction, Va. There is but one brigade of Wood's division at


Page 27 NORTH ALABAMA AND EAST TENNESSEE.