May 26, 1862 (Monday): Lee Looks to the West

Railroad Depot, Atlanta, Georgia

HEADQUARTERS

Richmond., Va., May 26, 1862 

General G. T. BEAUREGARD:
Commanding Western Department:
    GENERAL: Your letter of the 19th instant has just been received. Although no instructions have been given as to the military operations within your department since the command devolved on you, yet your condition and movements have been the subject of anxious consideration. Full reliance was felt in your judgment and skill and in the bravery of your army to maintain the great interests of the country and to advance the general policy of the Government. It was also hoped that the victory of Shiloh would have enabled you upon the arrival of your re-enforcements to occupy the country north of you and to have re-established the former communications enjoyed by the army. This hope is still indulged,, and every effort will be made, as has heretofore been done, to strengthen you by all the means within the control of the Department.
    Should, however, the superior numbers of the enemy force you back, the line of retreat indicated by you is considered the best, and in that event, should it be inevitable, it is hoped you will be able to strike a successful blow at the enemy if he follows, which will enable you to gain the ascendancy and drive him back to the Ohio.
    The maintenance of your present position, with the advantages you ascribed to it, so long as you can resist the enemy and subsist your army, is of course preferable to withdrawing from it, and thus laying open more of the country to his ravages, unless by skillful maneuvering you can entice him to a more favorable position to attack. The question of subsisting your army for any length of time, cut off from the supplies north of you, may demand your serious attention, and was the subject of a telegraphic dispatch to you this morning. The supplies accumulated at Atlanta are intended as a reserve for the army in the East as well as the West, and cannot be entirely appropriated to either division. Each army must therefore draw its support, as far as possible, from the country it can control, and this necessity must not be lost sight, of in the operations of either, and any accelerate movements which otherwise it might be deemed prudent to restrain.
    I am, very respectfully, you obedient servant,





   R. E. LEE,
   General.

Series I., Vol. 10, Part 2, Page 546.

As Lee states, Beauregard had been left to his best judgments.  With the Union army at the gates of Richmond, the oversight given to operations in the east was not extended to the west.  But Lee, as always elaborately polite, seems to suggest here a disappointment in Beauregard's failure to utilize reinforcements sent after the Battle of Shiloh to move northward.  It is also interesting to note Atlanta being mentioned as a strategic point of interest this early in the war.  Supplies for both armies were staged there, although this rail terminus was 249 miles from Corinth and 479 from Richmond.  It was important Beauregard move north and live off the land, freeing up supplies in Atlanta to be used in the east.