Alan J. Pitts
Minor detail...
Mon Apr 23 12:57:02 2001


The name of the commander in question was John B. Turchin, colonel of the 19th Illinois Infantry. He and his men were in Tuscumbia for less than a week, so that should help us to identify the situation. Here's a few notes on his expedition to Tuscumbia:

On April 13th a brigade under Colonel John B. Turchin was started to Tuscumbia (thirty miles west of Decatur), where it arrived about the 17th.... It encountered no enemy, and was recalled by Mitchel on the 24th, upon a rumor that it was threatened from Corinth. As soon as it crossed again to the north side of the Tennessee the Decatur bridge was burned. As a reconnoitering measure, this expedition was well enough. The evil of it, as it turned out, was in the injury which resulted to the line of railroad -- the destruction of the Decatur bridge by Mitchel himself, and other bridges by the enemy.

Of course Col. Turchin is better known for his later sack of the town of Athens in Limestone County. He was court-martialed by order of General Buell for this, but received promotion to the rank of Brigadier General on the urging of President Lincoln prior to sentence of the court martial.