ON THIS DAY: Saturday, Oct. 26, 1861

From his headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman writes yet another worried letter, this to brother John Sherman, a member of Congress (House 1855-61 and Senate 1861-77). “My force is ridiculously small…[I] feel that I am about to be sacrificed….I tell you, and warn you of the danger. So far as my power goes, I cannot promise to prevent the enemy reaching the Ohio River at a hundred different points.”

Sherman’s nightmares will not come true. Although the Confederates hold the southern edge of Kentucky—most of which they will lose in a few months—they will make no threatening moves toward Ohio for a year—and fail then as well.