Later in the autumn Gen. Zolicoffer moved his forces towards the Kentucky border. He even passed beyond Cumberland Gap and established his camp north of Cumberland (river) Ford, near Barbourville, Kentucky. After his departure there was a succession of officers in command at Knoxville. First, Col. Wm. B. Wood, of Alabama, whose zeal was intense and did not leave room enough in his mind for the exercise of that discretion, which is said to be the better part of valor. On the 28th of October, his want of self-control, and therefore, unfitness to command others, was signally shown. An affray occurred in the town between a few citizens and some of his men, growing out of an attempt by the police to subject the disorderly soldiers to the civil authority, and their resistance. He represented that the joy of Union men over the news that Gen. Zolicoffer with his army had fallen back on Cumberland Ford, became so irrepressible that “some eight or ten of the bullies or leaders made an attack on some of (his) men near the Lamar House and seriously wounded several.” He immediately marched a company of cavalry and one hundred infantry into the town. In an overflow of wrath he slighted the proposal of the Mayor to unite with him in restoring and preserving order, and proceeded to search actively for the frightened guardians of the municipality. They, meanwhile, had made their escape. Entering the store-house of a leading mercantile firm, he demanded in a lordly style that the building should be thoroughly examined, and sternly threatened that if he found one of the alleged culprits secreted in the house, he would burn it down. The quiet and brave head of the firm assented to the demand, but as it resulted in no discovery there was no conflagration! The general bearing on the occasion of the wrathful officer may be inferred from this incident. It is manifest from the correspondence between Gen. Zolicoffer, Col. Wood and others, that the angry disaffection of friends of the Union in East Tennessee under Confederate domination made them restless. Col. Wood, writing from Knoxville on the first day of the month, to Hon. J. P. Benjamin, Secretary of War, at Richmond, said: “There can be no doubt of the fact that large parties, numbering from twenty to a hundred, are every day passing through the narrow and unfrequented gaps of the mountain into Kentucky to join the army. My courier, just in from Jamestown, informs me that a few nights since, one hundred and seventy men passed from Roane County into Kentucky. I do not believe that the Unionists are in the least reconciled to the (C. S.) Government, but on the contrary are as hostile to it as the people of Ohio, and will be ready to take up arms as soon as they believe the Lincoln forces are near enough to sustain them.”