O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME X/2 [S# 11]
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN KENTUCKY, TENNESSEE, NORTH MISSISSIPPI, NORTH ALABAMA, AND SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA FROM MARCH 4 TO JUNE 10, 1862.--#1
P. O. DEPT., APPOINTMENT OFFICE, Feb. 20, 1862.
A. H. MARKLAND, Esq.,
Special Agent Post-Office Department,
Fort Donelson, near Dover, Tenn.:
DEAR SIR: Your letter of the 12th instant is received, and your action in the premises approved of by the Department. I take the occasion to express my gratification on your reappointment, and to add my testimony to the efficiency, energy, and zeal manifested in the discharge of the important duties devolved upon you.
In view of the advance of the army into Tennessee it is deemed important that the mail service shall keep pace, to a reasonable extent, with its movements, in order to afford the facilities necessary to its efficiency, as well as to the communications between it and the Headquarters at Washington and elsewhere. It is desirable, therefore, that the necessary service for the present be re-established on the more important routes; say between the county seats and convenient to the different permanent posts of the operating army. In doing this the service need not, in all cases, be put up to its former frequency and expense until it shall be considered necessary by the Department to return to the old schedules. On railroads it may be made daily when daily trains are run. On other principal routes weekly, or twice or three times a week, according to their importance. Where old contractors are loyal they may resume at rates not exceeding the pro rata of their former contracts, often perhaps less.
In the discretion given you to re-establish post-offices and appoint postmasters due care should be taken to reopen the service on routes and offices only so far as our occupation will be permanent and the mails permanently secure, and to appoint only such persons as are known to be unconditional Union men, and who are willing to take the necessary oath of allegiance to the Government of the United States, and, to save delay, a package of blank letters of appointments, bonds, and affidavits, will accompany this letter, in order that the persons appointed may execute the same with good and sufficient security, and enter at once upon the duties of the office.
These letters must be countersigned by you before delivery. In all cases in which you may act you will report immediately to the Department for its ratification and approval.
Your former instructions will guide you except so far as limited by this letter.
I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
JOHN A. KASSON,
First Assistant Postmaster-General.
Contract officer approves.
GEO. W. McLELLAN,
Second Assistant Postmaster-General.
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O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME X/2 [S# 11]
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN KENTUCKY, TENNESSEE, NORTH MISSISSIPPI, NORTH ALABAMA, AND SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA FROM MARCH 4 TO JUNE 10, 1862.--#2
SPECIAL ORDERS No. 5.
HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF THE OHIO,
Nashville, Tenn., April 3, 1862.
* * * * * * * * * *
V. Unless it conflicts with special instructions he may have received or may hereafter receive from the Postmaster-General, Col. A. H. Markland, special agent Post-Office Department, will continue with and take general supervision of the mails for the Army of the Ohio until further orders.
By command of Major-General Buell:
[OLIVER D. GREENE,]
Assistant Adjutant-General.
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O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME 14 [S# 14]
CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN, VIRGINIA, FROM MARCH 17 TO SEPTEMBER 2, 1862.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ETC -- #5
GENERAL ORDERS No. 118.
HDQRS. ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,
Camp Winf. Scott, near Yorkt'n, Va., Ap'l 16,1862.
I. Brig. Gen. Stewart Van Vliet, chief quartermaster, will immediately establish a temporary post-office in the vicinity of these headquarters, under the charge of Capt. George B. Dandy, assistant quartermaster.
The mail for Fort Monroe and the North will close at 10 a.m., and the mail from Fort Monroe will be ready for delivery at about 5 p.m., daily.
Mail matter may be sent to and received from the post-office at these headquarters by messengers from the headquarters of army corps, divisions, and independent commands.
All letters for the mail must be prepaid, or (if soldiers' letters) certified, as required by law.
II. The following notice from the Post-Office Department is published for the information of the Army of the Potomac:
POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT, April 3, 1862.
The Post-Office Department deems it advisable that all letters addressed to officers and soldiers of the Army of the Potomac, whether near Washington or moving South, should be mailed to Washington City. From that office they will be properly forwarded in separate packages to the respective corps and divisions, and their delivery facilitated. Commanders of divisions are requested, as movements occur, to cause notice to be given to the postmaster of Washington to what convenient point such packages destined to regiments under their command should be sent.
JOHN A. KASSON,
First Assistant Postmaster-General.
By command of Major-General McClellan:
S. WILLIAMS,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
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O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XIII [S# 19]
JUNE 11, 1862.--Skirmish at Pink Hill, Mo.
No. 2. -- Report of Lieut. Col. James T. Buel, Seventh Missouri Cavalry.
HEADQUARTERS U.S. FORCES,
lndependence, Mo., June 12, 1862.
SIR: An escort of 15 men, which left this place yesterday morning with the Harrisonville mail, was fired into by a band of guerrillas when about 15 miles from town, killing 2 and wounding 2 more. Captain Cochran, Missouri State Militia, who was in command of the escort, immediately started in pursuit, but the villains made good their escape. The mail arrived safely at Harrisonville, but the carrier dared not come back with escort. I am unwilling that any more of my men shall be murdered escorting this mail. I have therefore ordered it to be carried for the present by secessionists. I shall hold them accountable for its safe transmittal. Have also cautioned the postmaster not to send any valuables or important dispatches in this mail, but by the way of Saint Louis. I am keeping my troops constantly on the move, leaving the post at times so much exposed that it gives me some uneasiness.
Yours, respectfully,
J. T. BUEL,
Lieutenant-Colonel Seventh Cav., Mo. Vols., Comdg. Post.
Brigadier-General TOTTEN.
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O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XIV [S# 20]
CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING SPECIALLY TO THE OPERATIONS ON THE COASTS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, GEORGIA, AND MIDDLE AND EAST FLORIDA FROM APRIL 12, 1862, TO JUNE 11, 1863.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.--#1
HDQRS. NORTHERN DISTRICT, DEPT. OF THE SOUTH,
Hilton Head, S.C., May 23, 1862.
General M. C. MEIGS,
Quartermaster. General U.S. Army:
SIR: A letter from yourself (*) has been shown me by my chief quartermaster, giving the views of your department as to the disposition to be made of the steamers that may have been employed in this district and returned to New York, and in relation to these views I have certain statements to make to you which may lead you to form an opinion whether they are just or most expedient for the public service. The troops of this district, some twenty-two regiments, are, as you of course know, situated upon islands entirely (except some 600 men at the isolated outpost of Saint Augustine), and they are distributed along a line of these islands nearly 200 miles in length. Land transportation, as horses, mules, and wagons, your department has not furnished us, and they could have been but of limited use if you had. Our only means of movement therefore for attack or defense is by vessels, and they must be steamers; and with, as has been fully believed, some 60,000 men in front of us, between Savannah and Charleston, that can be concentrated by railway in five or six hours at any point in front of our 13,000 effective men here, this would seem to make it necessary that we have transportation always for one-half of that force at least.
Now, I might even pass over whatever claims the nearly 25,000 men of the Army and Navy here may have to some provision for the sending of their mails to them, and the importance that Government orders should duly reach them, and for which I find that one steamer only besides the Atlantic could furnish us with weekly line (the vessels being otherwise loaded with supplies that will be constantly needed). These Government dispatches, it should be observed, are at times of the utmost importance, when our enemy in front have telegraphic communication to all their main armies, learning their victories or defeats days and even weeks before we do, by which the reasons for early opportune movements are entirely with them. Yet even this small boon of this weekly mall has been denied this department, mails having at several different times reached here only at intervals of three to four weeks, in one case having accumulated to the number, as the postmaster states, of over 83,000 letters, and since my arrival to between 60,000 to 70,000 at once, the steamer Atlantic appearing to be allowed to run here only because it is the only port she can enter (except to Fort Monroe) on this whole coast.
I might pass over all this, but when the safety of the army is compromised and its efficiency destroyed by such decisions as are in your letter, as I doubt not by your not understanding fully the case, it becomes my duty to inform you of the facts, and to remonstrate against such action. About the first of this month I submitted a plan of an attack upon Charleston with such troops as could be spared from my division alone (as it appeared that we had no hope of re-enforcements). This was to take over one-half the disposable force to Edisto, as could have been done in two days with the steamers then here or confidently relied upon to come, and then to start with the balance all afloat at once, and in one day, with a bound as it were, join the others and spring upon the island adjacent to and this side of Charleston Harbor. It was perhaps the most daring project for so many troops that has been proposed in the war, and General Hunter could not feel that we were strong enough for it to be safe at that time.
[excerpt]
To one other point I would respectfully ask your attention, and that is the furnishing of light felt hats for the troops here. From the first week after my arrival I saw the indispensable necessity of this to save our men from suffering, and the chief quartermaster forwarded a requisition for 15,000 of such hats, which have again been asked for without our receiving them, though now some six or seven weeks have passed, and the greatest heats of the Southern sun now are impending, and the men have no head covering but those little cloth caps.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
H. W. BENHAM,
Brigadier-General.
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Bringing the