ORs: (CS) General Orders No. 3 - October 23, 1862

War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies
Series 1, Volume 16, Part 2, Page 976-7

HEADQUARTERS CAVALRY,
Cumberland Gap, Tenn.,
October 23, 1862.

GENERAL ORDERS No. 3.

Soldiers of the Cavalry Corps, Army of the Mississippi:
The autumn campaign in Kentucky is over. Your arduous duties as the advance and rear guard of a vast army are for the present finished. Your gallantry in action, your cheerful endurance of sulThriimos from hunger, fatigue, and exposure render you worthy of all commendation. For nearly two months you have scarcely for a moment been without the range of the enemy’s musketry. In more than twenty pitched fights, many of which lasted throughout the day, you have successfully combated largely superior numbers of the enemy’s troops of all arms. Hovering continually near their lines, you have engaged in no less than one hundred skirmishes, and upon the memorable field of Perryville, alone and unsupported, you engaged and held in check during the entire action at least two infantry divisions of the opposing army. By your gallant charges on that day you completely dispersed and routed a vastly superior force of the enemy's cavalry, driving them in confusion under their artillery and infantry supports, capturing in hand-to-hand conflicts many prisoners horses, arms, &c. Your continual contact with the enemy has taught you to repose without fear under his guns, to fight him wherever found, and to quietly make your bivouac by the light of his camp-fires. In this continual series of combats and brilliant charges many gallant officers and brave men have fallen. We mourn their loss; we commend their Valor. Let us emulate their soldierly virtues.

JOS. WHEELER,
Chief of Cavalry.