July 21, 1862

July 21, 1862: Union cavalry under Brig. Gen. Green Clay Smith pursues Morgan south toward Richmond, Kentucky.  As the Rebels arrived in Somerset, Kentucky, they find and capture a 150-wagon train of supplies for the Union army: Morgan’s men take all that they can carry and burn the rest.  Morgan decides to end his raid and heads his riders south toward Tennessee.

—Gen. Don Carlos Buell of the Army of the Ohio sends a frustrated dispatch to Secretary Stanton about the Rebel cavalry raids in his rear areas: Forrest in Tennessee and Morgan in Kentucky.  Operations toward Chattanooga have been suspended.  Buell points out that small garrisons cannot withstand the Rebel raids, and posting larger guards would have the effect of scattering his main force.  Buell asks for more troops and then makes this strange political evaluation: “I am compelled to ascribe the greater part of our annoyance from guerrilla bands to the spirit of hate and revenge which has been inspired in this quarter by an unwise policy and personal wrongs.”  To what he refers is unclear, although it is known that Buell, like McClellan, is pro-Union and pro-slavery, and looks askance on elements in the government who want to make the war into a crusade for human liberty.

—William Lyon, an officer in the Union army in northern Mississippi, writes home to his wife, with comical awareness of the flies and poignant longing for his wife

To Mrs. Lyon.

Camp Clear Creek, Miss., Monday, July 21, 1862.

—Yesterday I was Field Officer of the Day (the officer who has charge of the pickets and outside posts), and I was in the saddle nearly all day and tramping a good deal of the night, so I feel stupid today.

I keep your picture hanging in my tent, where I can lie on my bed, that is, on the ground, and gaze at it and get sentimental, and fight flies. Speaking of flies, the Egyptian plagues, although they had locusts, and lice, and frogs, I believe, were a failure, because they did not have flies. Such swarms of them as infest our camps, drawn here by the debris of a great army, you can not conceive of. They are the common house fly and, like everything else here, are dull and stupid— don’t know enough to go when you tell them to. So much for flies.