Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

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[348] had been in the West, and he felt most identified with it. On September 10, 1861, he was assigned to command our Department of the West, which included the states of Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, the Indian country, and the western part of Mississippi.

General Johnston, on his arrival at Nashville, found that he lacked not only men, but the munitions of war and the means of obtaining them. Men were ready to be enlisted, but the arms and equipments had nearly all been required to fit out the first levies. Immediately on his survey of the situation, he determined to occupy Bowling Green in Kentucky, and ordered Brigadier General S. B. Buckner, with five thousand men, to take possession of the position. This invasion of Kentucky was an act of self-defense rendered necessary by the action of the government of Kentucky, and by the evidences of intended movements of the forces of the United States. It was not possible to withdraw the troops from Columbus in the west, nor from Cumberland Ford in the east, to which General Felix K. Zollicoffer had advanced with four thousand men. A compliance with the demands of Kentucky would have opened the frontiers of Tennessee and the Mississippi River to the enemy; besides, it was essential to the defense of Tennessee.

East of Columbus, Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, and Hopkinsville were garrisoned with small bodies of troops; and the territory between Columbus and Bowling Green was occupied by moving detachments which caused the supposition that a large military force was present and contemplated an advance. A fortified camp was established at Cumberland Gap, as the right of General Johnston's line and an important point for the protection of East Tennessee against invasion. Thus General Johnston located his line of defense, from Columbus on the west to the Cumberland Mountains on the east, with his center at Bowling Green, which was occupied and entrenched. It was a good base for military operations, was a proper depot for supplies, and, if fortified, could be held against largely superior numbers.

On October 28th General Johnston took command at Bowling Green. He states his force to have been twelve thousand men, and that the enemy's force at that time was estimated to be double his own, or twenty-four thousand. He says: “The enemy's force increased more rapidly than our own, so that by the last of November it numbered fifty thousand, and continued to increase until it ran up to between seventy-five and one hundred thousand. My force was kept down by disease, so that it numbered about twenty-two thousand.”

The chief anxiety of the commander of the department was to