Carry
out your idea of occupying and partially fortifying
Pea Ridge.
I do not hear one word from
Saint Louis.
I am clearly of the opinion that the enemy are gathering strength at
Corinth quite as rapidly as we are here, and the sooner we attack the easier will be the task of taking the place.
If
Ruggles is in command, it would assuredly be a good time to attack.
I have made no change yet in the command so soon as sufficient troops arrive to form another brigade I will do so, and assign artillery and cavalry to divisions, and leave them subject to the control of division commanders.
Your letter inclosing correspondence between yourself and
Adjutant-General Thomas is just received.
In regard to the plundering at
Fort Donelson, it is very much overestimated by disappointed persons, who failed in getting off the trophies they had gathered.
My orders of the time show that I did all in my power to prevent marauding.
To execute these orders I kept a company on duty searching boats about leaving and to bring off all captured property found.
My great difficulty was with the rush of citizens, particularly the
Sanitary Committee, who infested
Donelson after its fall.
They thought it an exceedingly hard case that patriotic gentlemen like themselves, who had gone to tender their services to the sick and wounded, could not carry off what they pleased.
Most of the wounded had reached hospitals before these gentlemen left
Cairo.
One of these men (
a Dr. Fowler, of
Springfield) swore vengeance against me for this very act of preventing trophies being carried off. How many more did the same thing I can't tell.
My going to Nashville I did not regard particularly as going beyond my district.
After the fall of Donelson, from information I had I knew that the way was clear to Clarksville and Nashville.
Accordingly I wrote to you, directed to your chief of staff, as was all my correspondence from the time of leaving Fort Henry until I learned you were not hearing from me, that by Friday following the fall of Donelson I should occupy Clarksville, and by Saturday week following should be in Nashville, if not prevented by orders from headquarters of the department.
During all this time not one word was received from you, and I accordingly occupied Clarksville on the day indicated, and two days after the time I was to occupy Nashville General Nelson reported to me, with a division of Buell's army, they being already on transports; and knowing that Buell's column should have arrived opposite Nashville the day before, and having no use for these troops myself, I ordered them immediately to Nashville.
It is perfectly plain to me that designing enemies are the cause of all the publications that appear and are the means of getting extracts sent to you. It is also a little remarkable that the Adjutant-General should learn of my presence in
