September 7, 1862

September 7, 1862:  Gen. Bragg and the Army of Tennessee are bivouacked in Sparta, Tennessee, when Bragg learns that Gen. Buell and the Federal army have begun moving North, heading to Bowling Green, which is Bragg’s destination as well. 

---His army now all in Maryland, mostly bivouacked in and near Frederick, Maryland, Gen. Lee writes to Pres. Davis about the necessity of being provided with sufficient cash to pay for supplies, so as not to put off the Marylanders from the Confederate cause.  Lee makes plans to move into Pennsylvania and head to Harrisburg.

Confederates paused in the streets of Frederick

 

---Although the decision to invade the North is controversial amongst Southerners, Pres. Jefferson Davis maintains that the strategy is a sound one, in a letter to his commanders: that “we are driven to protect our own country by transferring the seat of war to that of an enemy, who pursues us with a relentless and, apparently, aimless hostility; that our fields have been laid waste, our people killed, many homes made desolate, and that rapine and murder have ravaged our frontiers; that the sacred right of self-defense demands that, if such a war is to continue, its consequences shall fall on those who persist in their refusal to make peace.”  He asks Lee, Kirby-Smith, and Bragg to issue proclamations to the populace to that effect.

Pres. Jefferson Davis

---The city of Clarksville, Tennessee is recaptured by Union troops of the 71^st Ohio Infantry, 11^th Illinois Infantry, and the 5^th Iowa Cavalry Regiments.

---George Templeton Strong of New York City records in his journal a very savvy and perceptive strategic assessment—tinged with real emotional alarm—of the Union’s military fortunes at this time:

The country is turning out raw material for history very fast, but it’s an inferior article.  Rebellion is on its legs again, East and West, rampant and aggressive at every point.  Out lines are either receding or turned, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi.  The great event now prominently before us is that the South has crossed the Potomac in force above Washington and invaded Maryland and occupied Frederick, proclaimed a provisional governor, and seems advancing on the Pennsylvania line.  No one knows the strength of the invading column.  Some say 30,000, and others five times that.  A very strong [Union] force, doubtless, has pushed up the Potomac to cut off the rebel communications.  If it succeed, the rebellion will be ruined, but if it suffer a disorganizing defeat, the North will be at Jefferson Davis’s mercy.  I dare not let my mind dwell on the tremendous contingencies of the present hour. . . .

     The nation is rapidly sinking just now, as it has been sinking rapidly for two months and more, because it wants two things: generals that know how to handle their men, and strict military discipline applied to men and officers.  God alone can give us good generals, but a stern and rigorous discipline visiting every grave military offence with death can be given us by our dear old great-uncle Abe, if he only would do it.  With our superiority in numbers and in resources, discipline would make us strong enough to conquer without first-rate generals, unless an Alexander or Napoleon should be born into Rebeldom.