Th.  J. Wood, Major-General Volunteers

Vicksburg, Mississippi, August 24, 1886.

Brigadier-General Don Carlos Buell arrived at Louisville about the middle of November, with orders to relieve me, and I was transferred for duty to the Department of the Missouri, and ordered to report in person to Major-General H. W. Halleck at St. Louis.  I accompanied General Buell to the camp at Nolin, where he reviewed and inspected the camp and troops under the command of General A. McD.  McCook, and on our way back General Buell inspected the regiment of Hazzard at Elizabethtown.  I then turned over my command to him, and took my departure for St. Louis.

At the time I was so relieved I thought, of course, it was done in fulfillment of Mr. Lincoln’s promise to me, and as a necessary result of my repeated demand for the fulfillment of that promise; but I saw and felt, and was of course deeply moved to observe, the manifest belief that there was more or less of truth in the rumor that the cares, perplexities, and anxiety of the situation had unbalanced my judgment and mind.  It was, doubtless, an incident common to all civil wars, to which I could only submit with the best grace possible, trusting to the future for an opportunity to redeem my fortune and good name.  Of course I could not deny the fact, and had to submit to all its painful consequences for months; and, moreover, I could not hide from myself that many of the officers and soldiers subsequently placed under my command looked at me askance and with suspicion.  Indeed, it was not until the following April that the battle of Shiloh gave me personally the chance to redeem my good name.

On reaching St. Louis and reporting to General Halleck, I was received kindly, and was shortly afterward (viz., November 23d) sent up to Sedalia to inspect the camp there, and the troops located along the road back to Jefferson City, and I was ordered to assume command in a certain contingency.  I found General Steels at Sedalia with his regiments scattered about loosely; and General Pope at Otterville, twenty miles back, with no concert between them.  The rebel general, Sterling Price, had his forces down about Osceola and Warsaw.  I advised General Halleck to collect the whole of his men into one camp on the La Mine River, near Georgetown, to put them into brigades and divisions, so as to be ready to be handled, and I gave some preliminary orders looking to that end.  But the newspapers kept harping on my insanity and paralyzed my efforts.  In spite of myself, they tortured from me some words and acts of imprudence.  General Halleck telegraphed me on November 26th:  “Unless telegraph-lines are interrupted, make no movement of troops without orders;” and on November 29th:  “No forward movement of troops on Osceola will be made; only strong reconnoitring-parties will be sent out in the supposed direction of the enemy; the bulk of the troops being held in position till more reliable information is obtained.”