OPERATIONS IN KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE. [CHAP. XII.
extent if we can get wagons. I send you Captain A. J. Mackay, brigade quartermaster, who can explain to you fully the embarrassments we labor under in this poor country, and I would be obliged if he can be furnished with funds to pay all small bills against the department, as being able to do so will give confidence to the people, and enable us to get forage, &c., much more easily than by the present method of giving certified accounts of purchases. This is a poor region of country. If we are compelled to winter here, nearly if not all of our supplies will have to be brought from a distance.
General Schoepf has found it necessary to appoint his assistant adjutant-general, Captain T. S. Everett, chief of the quartermaster and commissary departments for the troops at London, as he could find no one else who has any knowledge of the duties of those departments. I have also to ask Colonel Swords and Captain Symonds to furnish Captain Everett with sufficient funds to pay all small bills against these departments contracted by him or any of his subordinates.
I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
GEO. H. THOMAS, Brigadier-General, U. S. Volunteers.
CAMP CALVERT, London, Ky., November 3, 1861. (Received November 5.)
Brigadier-General THOMAS, Commanding, &c., Crab Orchard:
GENERAL: Yours of the 2nd is received. Captain Adams has arrived and Captain Everett has turned over to him the duties of the subsistence department. Captain Everett thinks that with a good degree of patience and perseverance on his part he can get Captain Adams into a reasonable knowledge of the business of the department, he (Adams) being attentive and willing to be instructed. Captain Everett will continue at the head of the quartermaster department until relieved by an officer of that department.
The timely arrival of the fourteen wagons, on the 31st, sent with supplies from Crab Orchard, relieves us from any immediate fears of getting out of provisions. I now have two trains on the road, and am grinding from 50 to 80 bushels of corn per day.
If I can get my mules shod I shall get along, but at present they are in bad condition, some of them having to remain in camp wholly unfit for the road. If the quartermaster at Crab Orchard has a shop in operation, please let him render us as much assistance in this line as possible. Also try to send us shoes and nails, a requisition for which has been made.
No news of importance from the enemy. I inclose a few more of the reports called for by your chief of staff on the 1st instant. I have so far found it impossible to get the commanders of regiments to furnish proper monthly returns for October. My adjutant-general has been untiring in his efforts for the last three days to get something upon which he could frame a report for the Adjutant-General's Office, but so far without effect. The want of suitable blanks for regimental returns is one great obstacle in the way. If proper returns cannot be obtained in the next twenty-four hours, Captain Everett must take the matter in hand and make out the returns for each regiment. Have you any blanks for post or brigade returns? If so, please send me a few sheets.
