December 27, 1862 (Saturday): Rosecrans Advances

Benjamin S. Ewell

CHATTANOOGA, December 27, 1862.
Lieutenant General E. K. SMITH,
Knoxville, Tenn.:
     The following dispatch just received from General Gragg:
Enemy advancing in heavy force. Send forward all troops and notify officers on trains to return by first cars.


     B. BRAGG.

    Had not all troops within reach of this place better be immediately sent on? Advise me by telegraph.
    Respectfully,

    BENJ. S. EWELL,
   Assistant Adjutant-General.

 
CHATTANOOGA, December 27, 1862.
General J. E. JOHNSON, Jackson, Miss.:
    General Gragg designated no troops, but wanted any that could be sent. I telegraphed to General E. K. Smith. He has only 1,200 troops in this part of his command. He will concentrate them at Kingston. I will send him your orders, and will in the meantime send part of the troops from this place and from all points near where there are any that can be spared, however few. General Stevenson's troops have all gone. The telegraph line to Murfreesborough does not work. Wire probably cut.*
    Respectfully,


    BENJ. S. EWELL,
    Assistant Adjutant-General.

Official Records, Series. I., Vol. 52, Part 2, Page 401.

*This in reply to Johnson's first dispatch, VOL. XX, Part II, p.463. 

Rosecrans is on the march and Bragg knows he is coming.  The first telegraph was used in war only eight years previously in the Crimean War, but already was becoming a factor.  Cutting the wires of the enemy was considered a priority and here Rosecrans is successfully limiting Bragg's ability to communicate.  The Ewell here is the older brother of Dick Ewell and former (and postwar) President of William & Mary College.  He is serving here as A.A.G. to Joe Johnston.