Sunday, 15th.— The battalion1 passed on through Knoxville and encamped about one mile and a half east of town, at Camp Cummings.
On the above date General Albert Sidney Johnston assumed command of this department (No. 2), which embraced the States of Tennessee and Arkansas and that part of Mississippi west of the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern and Central Railroad; also the military operations in Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, and the Indian country immediately west of Missouri and Arkansas, by issuing the following order from department headquarters, at Nashville, Tennessee:
By virtue of special orders, No. 149, of September 10, 1861, from the Adjutant and Inspector General’s office at Richmond, the undersigned assumes command of the military department thereby created.
A. S. Johnston, General
Brigadier-General F. K. Zollicoffer had been in command of the District of East Tennessee since about the first of August, with headquarters at Knoxville.
His brigade was now composed of nine regiments of infantry and four battalions of cavalry….
Churchwell’s Regiment, as well as other portions of Zollicoffer’s Brigade, was totally unarmed. Only a part of his brigade was now at Knoxville, for on the 16th instant Zollicoffer writes thus to A. S. Johnston;
There are probably by this time four regiments at Cumberland Ford [Kentucky] and a fifth at the gap fifteen miles this side. A sixth will probably be moved up by the 21st or 22d.
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1 As J. J. Odom and I were on the puny list, we stopped to rest and take dinner with a Frenchman, within four miles of Knoxville. The family were great “Rebs,” so it seemed to be with pleasure that they did all they could to make us comfortable.
It so happened that our host was a preacher. Some other French families who lived in the neighborhood had collected there to hear him preach. As some of them did not understand English, he preached in French. I “heard but did not understand ” a single word of that sermon. We had a splendid dinner, and we had now been soldiering long enough to appreciate a good dinner. Among other nice things, a glass of wine of their own make was served to each.
Odom and I went to camp late that afternoon.
