We were not obliged to camp out every night on this trip. One evening, just about supper time, we reached a large stone house, the home of a farmer. The man, we found, was a strong Unionist, and he gave us a hearty invitation to occupy his premises. Our escort took possession of the barn for sleeping, and we cooked our supper in the yard, the family lending us a table and sending us out fresh bread. After supper Wilson and I were invited into the house, where the farmer listened eagerly to the news of the Union army. There were two or three young and very pretty girls in the farmer's family, and while we talked they dipped snuff, a peculiar custom that I had seen but once or twice before.
We reached Knoxville on the 13th, and I at once went to headquarters to talk over the situation with Burnside. This was the first time I had met that general. He was rather a large man physically, about six feet tall, with a large face and a small head, and heavy side whiskers. He was an energetic, decided man, frank, manly, and well educated. He was a very showy officer—not that he made any show; he was naturally that. When he first talked with you, you would think he had a great deal more intelligence than he really possessed. You had to know him some time before you really took his measure.
I found that Burnside's forces, something like thirty-three thousand men of all arms, were scattered all the way from Kentucky, by Cumberland Gap, down to Knoxville. In and about Knoxville he had not concentrated more than twelve thousand to fourteen thousand men. The town was fortified, though unable to resist an attack by a large force. Up to this time Burnside and his army had really been very well off, for he had commanded a rich region behind Knoxville, and thence had drawn food and forage. He even had about one hundred miles of railroad in active operation for foraging, and he had plenty of mills and workshops in the town which he could use.
After a detailed conversation with Burnside, I concluded that there was no reason to believe that any force had been sent from Lee's army to attack him on the northeast, as we had heard in Chattanooga, but that it was certain that Longstreet was approaching from Chattanooga with thirty thousand troops. Burnside said that he would be unable long to resist such an attack, and that if Grant did not succeed in making a demonstration which would compel Longstreet to return he must retreat.
If compelled to retreat, he proposed, he said, to follow the line of Cumberland Gap, and to hold Morristown and Bean's Station. At these points he would be secure against any force the enemy could bring against him; he would still be able to forage over a large extent of country on the south and east, he could prevent the repair of the railroads by the rebels, and he would still have an effective hold on East Tennessee.
A few hours after this talk with Burnside, about one o'clock in the morning of the 14th, a report reached Knoxville that completely upset his plan for retreating by Cumberland Gap. This was the news that the enemy had commenced building bridges across the Tennessee near Loudon, only about twenty-five miles south of Knoxville. Burnside immediately decided that he must retreat; and he actually dictated orders for drawing his whole army south of the Holston into Blount County, where all his communications would have been cut off, and where on his own estimate he could not have subsisted more than three weeks. General Parke argued against this in vain, but finally Colonel Wilson overcame it by representing that Grant did not wish Burnside to include the capture of his entire army among the plans of his operations. He then determined to retreat toward the gaps, after destroying the workshops and mills in Knoxville and on the line of his march.
Before we left, however, which was about six o'clock in the morning of the 14th, General Burnside had begun to feel that perhaps he might not be obliged to pass the mountains and abandon East Tennessee entirely. He had even decided to send out a force to attack the enemy's advance. When Wilson and I reached Lenoir's Station that morning on our way to Chattanooga, we discovered that the enemy's attack was not as imminent as Burnside feared. Their bridges were not complete, and no artillery or cavalry had crossed. From everything I could learn of their strength, in fact, it seemed to me that there was a reasonable probability that Burnside would be able to hold Knoxville until relieved by operations at Chattanooga.
We found that our departure from Knoxville had been none too soon. So completely were the Confederates taking possession of the country between Knoxville and Chattanooga that had we delayed a single day we could have got out only through Cumberland Gap or that of Big Creek. We were four days in returning, and Mr. Stanton became very uneasy, as I learned from this dispatch received soon after my return:
War Department,
Washington, D.C., November 19, 1863.