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122 We Found Pies Hot from the Oven  9  THE WOUND THAT DUKE RECEIVED in the fight at the Rolling Fork River crossing was fairly serious, and it was not until January 8, 1863, that he was able to write Tommie about the recent campaign.To diffuse her concerns, he attempted to minimize the seriousness of his injury. Fortunately, she missed hearing the premature reports of his death circulating in Lexington at this time because she had already packed up and headed south. Morgan apparently had sent a messenger to inform his mother that Duke was only slightly wounded, but the courier evidently told others in Lexington that he would not survive. Aware that Tommie had left Lexington, uncertain of her exact whereabouts,and concerned that her safety could be threatened by troop movements, Duke advised her to stay away from Huntsville and consider taking up residence in east Tennessee or even Georgia. Later in the war,Tommie made every attempt to be with her husband,but,in 1863,the division’s movements were too fluid to permit such a luxury. Several days later, Duke’s wife joined him in Tennessee, where she spent the next two months as he recovered from his wound and regained his strength.1 With Tommie’s attention and comfort, Duke’s rehabilitation progressed rapidly during the winter months, and, by March 1863, he was able to rejoin his brigade . During Duke’s convalescence, Bragg had entrenched the Army of the Tennessee along the Duck River just above Tullahoma. Duke’s brigade, with the rest of the division, had been positioned along Bragg’s right flank.The brigade was under the temporary command of Colonel Gano and was stretched out along a twenty-mile picket line with camps in several different locations. Camp size varied , depending on the assignment, and could range from several companies to regimental strength. The scattering of Duke’s troops enabled the brigade to patrol the area between McMinnville and Woodbury effectively. The brigade’s position was almost at a right angle to the Union army,with Woodbury being the extreme northern edge of the Confederate presence.2 The winter of 1862–63 was extremely cold and bitter and,according to Leeland We Found Pies Hot from the Oven 123 Hathaway, “a very hard one for soldiering.” Hathaway, a young officer in Breckinridge ’s Fourteenth Kentucky, elaborated: “There was scarcely a day which was not made miserable by the rain, snow and sleet. Often raining far into the night, then snowing, sleeting and freezing for the next several hours. The camps were only open rail pens when we had any shelter and from those we were called almost every night. There was no 24 hours without the report of the enemy advancing on the pike or the dirt road.” The severity of the winter and Richmond’s general inability to supply its troops in the field created severe shortages of clothing, ammunition , and basic food items. By the middle of the winter, the lack of sufficient fodder and oats for the horses became so acute that many of the animals deteriorated physically and were unable to be used even for routine picket duty.The lack of adequate provisions had a corresponding detrimental effect on the men’s morale and general combat effectiveness. From time to time, the division quartermaster was able to work minor miracles and procure the much-needed supplies, but it was never enough. Nonetheless, Duke was enraged by the supply system employed by the Confederate army and considered the root of the problem to be “incompetence and malfeasance.” Adding to the problems of the men in the ranks, pay was irregular, when it appeared at all. One soldier in Morgan’s command was pragmatic about the whole concept of pay, conceding that, while it was essential for the infantryman, who was restricted to camp and forced to rely on his pay to acquire his necessities from the local sutler, it was less so for the more mobile cavalryman, who was able to scour the countryside for his “square meal” and other needs.3 As the winter dragged on, supplies became even more of a problem, particularly in February, when two new regiments, the Fifth Kentucky, commanded by D. H. Smith, and the Sixth Kentucky, commanded by Warren Grigsby, joined the division. If supplies were scarce, military bureaucracy was abundant. Orders were soon issued to Morgan requiring him to regularly brigade the division. This resulted in Duke’s brigade...

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