September 12, 1862 (Thursday): A "Babel" of Confusion

Camp Dennison, Cincinnati

WASHINGTON, September 12, 1862.
Major-General BOYLE, Louisville, KY:
    Your dispatch of last evening received. Where is the enemy which you dread in Louisville? How near to you to? What is General Gilbert's opinion? With all possible respect for you I must think General Wright's military opinion is the better. He is as much responsible for Louisville as for Cincinnati. General Halleck telegraphed him on this very subject yesterday and I telegraph him now, but for us here to control him there on the ground would be a babel of confusion which would be utterly ruinous. Where do you understand Buell to be and what is he doing?


A. LINCOLN.


U. S. MILITARY TELEGRAPH,
Washington, September 12, 1862.
Major-General WRIGHT, Cincinnati, Ohio:
    I am being appealed from Louisville against your withdrawing troops from that place. While i cannot pretend to judge of the propriety of what you are doing, you would much oblige me by furnishing me a rational answer to make to the Governor and others at Louisville.


A. LINCOLN.


LOUISVILLE, KY., September 12, 1862.
The PRESIDENT:
    I expect no enemy here soon. If Bragg is in the State when Smith and he unite they may move on Louisville. General Gilbert's opinion may be inferred from dispatch he sent you. I believe he concurs with me. I have no idea there is any considerable force of the enemy near Cincinnati. Bragg is reported already in the State with large force on the line I indicated some days ago. I do not believe it. There is some force, but it is not large. Bragg may enter soon. Buell is at Nashville. Part of his army is at Bowling Green. McCook's division, which was on this side the Cumberland River, now is reported to have recrossed to the Nashville side. i have heard nothing from Buell. My information is from Colonel Bruce at Bowling Green. I concur with you that General Wright's military opinion is better than I ever thought mine to be, but I can know facts as well as the ablest military man. There are many reports. Deserters from Buckner report him with 10,000 men near Tompkinsville. Bragg reported at Burkesville and Columbia advancing into the center of the State. I do not believe any of the reports of an early attack at any point. They can, and I hope will, be driven out before they attack.


J. T. BOYLE,
Brigadier-General.

LOUISVILLE, KY., September 12, 1862.
His Excellency the PRESIDENT:
    The enemy must destroy Buell's army or cast it off to the west a long distance before attempting the capture of Cincinnati. If we secure Buell's line of communication with this place an attack on Cincinnati in force is an impossibility unless by the way of the Kanawha and Western Virginia. Granger's division is of the utmost importance as a head to the force now here, and a head it must have before it can move to co-operate with Buell, whose forces now show themselves at Bowling Green.


C. C. GILBERT,
Major-General.

(The same to Major-General Wright.)


Official Records, Series I., Vol. 16, Part 2, Pages 509-510

Confederate general Henry Heth had been sent with a small force to make a demonstration in front of Cincinnati.  With Kirby Smith and Bragg both operating in Kentucky, this caused no end of confusion and alarm.  Cincinnati was the sixth largest city in the United States and defended by over 20,000 U.S. troops and over 50,000 militia called "squirrel hunters".  In the face of such force the demonstration never became more than that.  But it did require Lincoln's attention at a time when his focus was on events in Maryland.  You get a sense of his frustrations when he asks Wright for a "rational answer" to give civilian authorities.