OPERATIONS IN KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE. [CHAP.XII.
horse, to be composed of Southern men to the exclusion of late Unionists, thus keeping alive the distinction which all sensible and good them are trying to obliterate. I wrote hastily to you whilst the cars were standing, hoping that you would pardon a scrawl which I would not like to send to the Secretary direct, and as the party designed to telegraph to the Department I used the same vehickle also.
When the President changed my destination from Manassas to Knoxville he expressed himself as anxious to have some regiments drawn from East Tennessee, especially from the ranks of the Unionists, whole threatened outbreak I was specially charged to aid in preventing by use of supposed personal influence. I asked you whether cavalry (or rather mounted rifle) regiments would be accepted. You answered yes, but added that your answer was unofficial, and that such authority must come from the Secretary direct. I had already been delayed in Richmond till I was asked why I tarried, and thus left without any written instructions, which I expected to receive here. Having spent four days in the camps near Manassas for instruction, I hastened to this point as ordered, and arrived on Saturday last, but found no orders or instructions. In Richmond I was given to understand that if I could raise one or more regiments here in East Tennessee I would be placed in command according to the number raised, and as I have been placed on that duty unsolicited, I shall expend to be sustained by the Department in the effort, if deemed worthy. In this view I claim that it is my due, the State having closed its recruiting, to have this district of East Tennessee considered as the field assigned to me. But as some will offer as horsemen and some as foot, and I cannot well command both, I willingly relinquish all claim to any consideration on account of the infantry that may be raised and confine myself to mounted men, whom Generals Johnston and Beauregard informed me they much need. I beg you to bring this matter before the Secretary,and let me be specifically authorized to raise as many mounted men as may be wanted. I have with others labored hard and with some success to allay the spirit of disaffection in this region and to produce a calm, which some deprecate, that will probably be succeeded by an active enlistment on our side. I stopped at Jonesborough one day to confer with Colonel T.A.R. Nelson, and through him to learn what the Unionists design, and the result of a long interview has strongly impressed me with the belief that he will not only abstain from doing anything hostile to the Confederacy, but that in due time (i.e., as soon as his standing with his party will permit) he will come out openly for the Southern cause, and he has given me aid already in getting up volunteers. At my instance Union leaders now here from different counties are to-night engaged in preparing an address, adopting Nelson's card (a copy of which I sent to the Adjutant-General yesterday), and advising their friends in Kentucky and elsewhere to return to their homes and submit to "the powers that be." I purpose publishing a handbill, containing a short appeal to my friends and General Zollicoffer's general order holding out the olive branch. This may lead to such mutual confidence that both sides may deem their rifles useless here, and agree to carry them together under my lead against a common foe.
Please to ask the Secretary to telegraph me how many mounted men I may raise.
Very respectfully and truly, yours,
A.M. LEA, Brigade Commissary.
