To Mrs. Lyon.
Fort Henry, Dec. 4, 1862.—We are going after Napier and his band tomorrow, and you may not hear from me for ten or twelve days. The teams and the cavalry go tomorrow morning by land, and we go Saturday morning up the river forty miles by water. The rebels are supposed to be at Waverly, ten or twelve miles from where we propose to land, east of the river. Our transportation, that is, teams, provisions, etc., go up on the west side for greater safety. We have a four-gun gunboat to convoy us up the river. I don’t know how many rebels there are up there, but probably not enough to induce them to fight us. We shall probably chase them about the country for a week or two and then come back. 1 f we can clean out that force there is nothing left in our beat for us to fight.
I will answer your questions. We are in General Grant’s command, which is called the Department of West Tennessee.
