Thursday, 3d.—Lieutenant Joe Wyatt (Company C) was elected surgeon of McNairy’s Battalion, F. W. Hearn (Company B), Quartermaster, and M. D. A. Nolan (Company A), Commissary Sergeant.
Sergeant Major M. W. McKnight, Lieutenant George Alexander and Private T. D. Summer, all from Company E, started home on furlough.
On the 2d instant, Col. T. T. Garrard wrote to General G. H. Thomas thus:
. . . . . .Colonel Brown has now enrolled and in camp some 250 twelve months’ soldiers. He has muskets, but no cartridge-boxes, caps, pouches, nor bayonet scabbards. . . . . .
Have not heard anything of the Rebels since they reached Barboursville. The last account is that some 100 or upwards were in Barboursville. (Two companies of McNairy’s Battalion). . . . . .
I have got Colonel Brown to move all of his men to the river (Big Rockcastle, some two miles to the rear) except one company, and they are outside our camp in a rock house. We have been much annoyed by them, as well as visitors and others who were driven before the Rebels. Some of them returned this evening part of the way home, but heard of the Rebels below London, and they returned to camp. The report, I am satisfied, is false.
And the next day, the 3d, he wrote thus in reference to Brown’s men.:
You will see before this reaches you that Colonel Brown has moved to the river, some two miles from us. I would be afraid to place them between the enemy and our camp. Some of his men are, I fear, a little timid, and I doubt whether or not they will do their duty on that side of us.
And in reference to Wolford’s Cavalry, on the 10th, he puts it thus:
When Captain Smith, of the cavalry, reached here (Wildcat), there was not one of Walford’s men in camp, nor had there been for several days, and if my informant is correct, some of them that are now here will do no good. They were seen drunk on picket yesterday at, or near, London.
On the date under which I am now writing, the 3d, Zollicoffer sent the .following telegraph dispatch to General A. S. Johnston, Columbus, Kentucky:
I think I have reliable information that Camp (Dick) Robinson was 7,000 strong; 1,0oo of these have gone to Lexington and Frankfort; 1,500 remain in camp, the residue believed to be certainly moving toward Barboursville to meet me. Should it appear to me expedient, I wish permission to meet them half way.
On the same day Johnston replied as follows:
“Dispatch received. Exercise your own discretion in attacking the enemy.”
It was about this time that Captain William Ewing resigned and returned home, and William Parrish became Captain of Company C, First Battalion.
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Reports listed here were published later in the Official Records. Hancock, of course, did not have access to them at the time.
