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2. Regiments in the Making
- Louisiana State University Press
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1. Andes and McTeer, Loyal Mountain Troopers, 21–23; Eckel, Fourth Tennessee, 16–17; Spears and Daniel C. Trewhitt to Johnson, May 12, 1862, PAJ, 5:379. CHAPTER 2 Regiments in the Making M ost would-be cavalrymen at Cumberland Gap, where Brig. Gen. George W. Morgan concentrated his division in June 1862, lacked horses. Initially Morgan, commanding the Seventh Division, Army of the Ohio, armed these recruits with “old Harper’s Ferry muskets” until Belgian muskets arrived. The Tennesseans drilled as infantry every day, and “to all intents and purposes,” without horses, they were infantrymen. During the Confederate invasion of Kentucky in summer 1862, Maj. Gen. E. Kirby Smith, advancing from Knoxville moving northwest, cut off the food supply of Morgan ’s division, forcing the Federals to live on quarter-rations of fatback, beans, and rice. One of the few consolations for Morgan’s men was music at night from the regimental bands of the 33rd and 49th Indiana Infantry, which tried to outplay each other. Once a glee club of Germans from the 33rd Indiana “entered into the contest” and received “as much applause” as did the others , and all the bandsmen “became jealous.” When they “drowned out” the singers, the German boys yelled, “Go to H—l with your Cumberland Gap and starvation.”1 By this time Union commanders in Kentucky and Tennessee realized that only cavalry could counteract the “predatory incursions” of enemy partisans. Brig. Gen. James G. Spears—a Tennessean commanding one of the Seventh Division’s brigades—and Morgan convinced Governor Johnson to authorize another regiment of unionist cavalry. They recommended as commander Richard M. Edwards, a legislator until early 1862. A veteran of the Mexican Regiments in the Making 41 2. Edwards to Johnson, June 6, 1863, PAJ, 6:239–40; Edwards to Johnson, Oct. 14, 1862, ibid., 27–28; Richard M. Edwards, 4th Tennessee, CSR. 3. Edwards to Johnson, Nov. 24, 1862, June 23, 1863, PAJ, 6:67–68, 264–68. 4. Daniel C. Trewhitt and others to Johnson, June 20, 1862, ibid., 5:493–94; Johnson to Edwin M. Stanton, June 25, 1862, ibid., 506–7; William R. McBath, 4th Tennessee, CSR. War then serving as commissary for Spears, Edwards was widely known in lower East Tennessee as an able attorney, orator, and politician.2 Morgan promised to help Edwards outfit the regiment, but he could provide neither “carbines, pistols, sabers nor cavalry uniforms,” though he did issue muskets. Edwards somehow collected enough horses to mount his first company of “sturdy boys fresh from the farms and shops.” As did Edwards, his regimental second in command, Jacob M. Thornburgh, “used his own . . . means . . . in recruiting.” Other officers included two former sheriffs, Capt. Meshack Stephens of Morgan County and Maj. William C. Pickens of Sevier County. Edwards agreed that once the army mustered in the regiment, he would be second in command to Pickens, a veteran of the Mexican War. But by August 1862 the two parted ways. Edwards described the happy-go-lucky Pickens as a “d—ned scoundrel,” a man “devoted to the bottle and cards.” Pickens accused Edwards of being disloyal because he had served in the Rebel legislature.3 With encouragement from General Spears, two other cavalry regiments organized . Col. Daniel M. Ray and Lt. Col. William R. Cook, resourceful men who promised to provide their own horses, began forming the 2nd Tennessee. Ray was a delegate to the Greeneville Convention and accompanied Pickens as one of the bridge burners. Cook, a Nicholasville, Kentucky, storekeeper, had been the 3rd Tennessee Infantry’s sutler. By the end of July, they had enlisted 103 cavalrymen, including a major and recruiter named William R. McBath, until then a captain in the 1st Tennessee Infantry. By now Robert Johnson had requested that his 4th East Tennessee Infantry be converted into cavalry. At his father’s request, Secretary Stanton authorized the purchase of horses. But mounts could neither be purchased nor confiscated near Cumberland Gap. When Morgan evacuated the area on September 7, the cavalry regiments remained works in progress.4 Recruitment of unionists slowed as the Confederates blocked the mountain passes in to and out of East Tennessee in fall 1862. But Colonel Johnson added to the 1st Tennessee three companies composed primarily of men from [3.85.63.190] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 05:18 GMT) 42 Beginnings 5. TICW, 1:318, 321, 324–25, 326–27; Carter, First Regiment, 269–331; Eckel, Fourth Tennessee, 16, 25–26...