May 22, 1862 (Thursday): "Bad Management and Stupidity"

General Earl Van Dorn

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE WEST,
May 22, 1862-8 a.m.

General BRAGG,
Commanding, Front:
    GENERAL: I am now on the cross-roads leading to Dickey's Mill and about the intersection of the Burnsville road. I have been delayed by bad management and stupidity of officers, unexpected defiles, &c., and I am sick with disappointment and chagrin, but will push the enemy when I do reach our position. I feel like a wolf and will fight Pope like one. Have patience with me; you will hear my guns soon.
Yours, &c.,


EARL VAN DORN.

Official Records, Series I., Vol. 10, Part 2, Page 538.

As at Manassas Beauregard had planned a complicated advance, aiming to strike Pope's army before it could lay siege to Cornith.  It was probably well that Von Dorn was unable to initiate the action, as the Union forces had superior numbers and another defeat in the West could have left the Confederacy with little effect force in the theatre.  Van Dorn was a favorite of Jefferson Davis', but his chief claim to fame was being shot dead later in the war at Spring Hill, Tennessee by the husband of a woman who he was involved with.