OPERATIONS IN KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE. [CHAP.XII.
if any, slave-owners among them, and the majority are fighting for the $13 a month and other pecuniary inducements. Did my instructions permit an advance on their camp, I would not hesitate to make it. I believe they would leave, and even if they fought, unless strongly re-enforced, I believe we could destroy them. The alacrity with which they fled from this strongly defensible country, leaving their wives, daughters, and children to the tender mercies of supposed ravishers, murderers, and barbarians, shows they are not yet very formidable as soldiers.
I made it my special business and used every effort to convince the people we were friends to all but soldiers in arms against us and those giving them aid and information. I think on the whole we have succeeded. No insult or injury to the person of any on has come to my notice. I am sorry to state that on yesterday, for the first time, the same respect was not paid to property. Our teamsters, rear guard, and guard with the teams, and individuals who fell back under the pretence of being sick, stole some poultry and other things along the road. I think this conduct was confined to very few; but it was witnessed by officers, who never exercised their authority to put in down, and it only comes to my knowledge now when it is too late to repair it.
On reaching the residence of Colonel Frame, a bitter enemy, in open arms against us, the chief circulator of all the slanders against us, a man who was ordered the plundering of all the southern-rights men he could find, I ordered his house, late headquarters of his camp at someplace, to be searched for arms and ammunition. We found immense quantities of empty gun boxes, receipts for Lincoln guns sent through the country, and all other indications of a recruiting camp. I ordered one quartermaster to seize sheep enough on the place to do us for who or three days; also to take some tallow, sweet oil, and turpentine, which we were in great need of. I then ordered the house to be closed up and nothing else taken. Some unprincipled men took advantage of this circumstance to commence stealing on their own account.
In view of this state of affairs I immediately issued and caused to be read to the men the inclosed special order (marked A*).
FRIDAY, November 15, 1861.
I found it unsafe to send a dispatch back, unless with such a force as I could not spare. I am camped here, 7 miles west of Tompkinsville, and expect to be at Jamestown or beyond by night. On the 13th, 12 m., I advanced on the Columbia road, with the intention of taking the Burkesville and Glasgow road home. My guides represented it to me as the best road, and as my orders were silent as to route returning, I thought it best to take the easiest and that which would most advance the object in view, which as I understood, was to make a strong impression (on the people of these hostile counties) as to our strength and readiness to exert it. I feared a return by same route might be construed into a retreat, especially as the enemy were reported on this road, within a few miles of our camp. For these and other good reasons, which I will give when I get back, I determined to take this route. We started at 12 m., intending to make McRea's Cross-Roads (9 miles distant, as I was informed by everybody at Tompkinsville, but which I found utterly untrue). I managed it so as to make the impression on everybody I would take a different road, and then suddenly turned off on this road. Two miles from town, my advanced guard jumped the enemy's pickets. The Texas Rangers, 10 in front, gave chase, followed 4 miles, when they suddenly found themselves in
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*Not found.
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