Summary:
George B. McClellan, commanding Union forces in West Virginia during July, 1861,
writes Assistant Adjutant Edward Townsend to ask if he should advance on
Staunton.
Col. E. D. TOWNSEND, Assistant Adjutant-Gen.:
BUCKHANNON,
July 7, 1861.
Newspaper reports say that my department is to be broken up. I hope the General will leave under my control both the operations on the Mississippi and in Western Virginia. If he cannot do so, the Indiana and Ohio troops are necessary to my success. With these means at my disposal, and such recourses as I command in Virginia, if the Government will give me ten thousand arms for distribution in Eastern Tennessee I think I can break the backbone of Secession. Please instruct whether to move on Staunton or on to Wytheville. I thank the General for his commendation, and hope to deserve rather in the future than in the past. Please enforce the occupation of Cumberland and Piedmont. The condition of things in that vicinity renders it absolutely necessary to occupy both these points, and you will remember that my command does not extend that far. I cannot too strongly impress upon you the necessity of holding these points. The Pennsylvania State troops now in the vicinity of Cumberland will answer the purpose perfectly well.
GEO. B. McCLELLAN,
Maj.-Gen., Commanding.
Bibliographic Information : Letter Reproduced from The War of The Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Volume 2, Serial No. 2, Pages 201, Broadfoot Publishing Company, Wilmington, NC, 1997.
