second division.
- August 25, 1862.
- January 31, 1863.
- October 7, 1863.
- January 11, 1864.
- —— ——, 1865.
A letter, on file from Robert Lincoln, states that the papers of the second division were returned to Miss Carroll, March 10, 1869.
Miss Carroll's first paper, addressed to the War Department, for a campaign on the Tennessee river and thence south, placed in the hands of Hon. Thomas A. Scott, Assistant Secretary of War, the 30th of November, 1861, with accompanying map, is as follows:
"The civil and military authorities seem to be laboring under a great mistake in regard to the true key to the war in the southwest. It is not the Mississippi, but the Tennessee river. All the military preparations made in the West indicate that the Mississippi river is the point to which the authorities are directing their attention. On that river many battles must be fought and heavy risks incurred before any impression can be made on the enemy, all of which could be avoided by using the Tennessee river. This river is navigable for middle-class boats to the foot of the Muscle Shoals, in Alabama, and is open to navigation all the year, while the distance is but two hundred and fifty miles, by the river, from Paducah, on the Ohio. The Tennessee offers many advantages over the Mississippi. We should avoid the almost impregnable batteries of the enemy, which cannot be taken without great danger and great risk of life to our forces, from the fact that our boats, if crippled, would fall a prey to the enemy by being swept by the current to him and away from the relief of our friends; but even should we succeed, still we will only have begun the war, for we shall then fight for the country from whence the enemy derives his supplies.
"Now an advance up the Tennessee river would avoid this danger, for if our boats were crippled, they would drop back with the current and escape capture; but a still greater advantage would be its tendency to cut the enemy's lines in two by reaching the Memphis and Charleston railroad, threatening Memphis, which lies one hundred miles due west, and no defensible point between; also Nashville, only ninety miles northeast, and Florence and Tuscumbia, in North Alabama, forty miles east.
"A movement in this direction would do more to relieve our friends in Kentucky and inspire the loyal hearts in East Tennessee than the possession of the whole of the Mississippi river. If well executed it would cause the evacuation of all these formidable fortifications upon which the rebels ground their hopes for success; and in the event of our fleet attacking Mobile, the presence of our troops in the northern part of Alabama would be material aid to the fleet.
"Again, the aid our forces would receive from the loyal men in Tennessee would enable them soon to crush the last traitor in that region, and the separation of the two extremes would do more than one hundred battles for the Union cause.
"The Tennessee river is crossed by the Memphis and Louisville railroad and the Memphis and Nashville railroad. At Hamburg the river makes the big bend on the east, touching the northeast corner of Mississippi, entering the northwest corner of Alabama, forming an arc to the South, entering the State of Tennessee at the northeast corner of Alabama, and if it does not touch the northwest corner of Georgia comes very near it.