But this was by no means the whole. He forgot that when he stopped Burnside's movement on 3d June to send the Ninth Corps to Grant, it was with the distinct understanding that it prevented its resumption till the corps should return. He had himself said that this should be as early as possible, and meanwhile directed Burnside to concentrate his remaining forces as much as he could. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. p.384.] Burnside had been told on the 8th of July, without inquiry from him, that the corps was coming back to him, and had immediately begun his preparation to resume an active campaign as soon as it should reach him. Not hearing of its being on the way, on the 18th he asked Halleck if orders for its return had been given. To this dispatch no answer was given, and it was probably pigeonholed and forgotten. Burnside continued his campaign against Morgan, and on the 24th, when the last combinations near Steubenville were closing the career of the raider, Halleck again telegraphs that there must be no further delay in the movement into East Tennessee, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. p.553.] and orders an immediate report of the position and number of Burnside's troops organized for that purpose! He was still ignorant, apparently, that there had been any occasion to withdraw the troops in Kentucky from the positions near the Cumberland River.
Burnside answered temperately, reciting the facts and reminding him of the actual state of orders and correspondence, adding only, "I should be glad to be more definitely instructed, if you think the work can be better done." Morgan's surrender was on the 26th, and Burnside immediately applied himself with earnest zeal to get his forces back into Kentucky. Judah's division at Buffington was three hundred miles from Cincinnati and five hundred from the place it had left to begin the chase. Shackelford's mounted force was two hundred miles further up the Ohio. This last was, as has been recited, made up of detachments from all the divisions of the Twenty-third Corps, and its four weeks of constant hard riding had used up men and horses. These all had to be got back to the southern part of central Kentucky and refitted, returned to their proper divisions, and prepared for a new campaign. The General-in-Chief does not seem to have had the slightest knowledge of these circumstances or conditions.
On the 28th another Confederate raid developed itself in southern Kentucky, under General Scott. It seemed to be intended as a diversion to aid Morgan to escape from Ohio, but failed to accomplish anything. Scott advanced rapidly from the south with his brigade, crossing the Cumberland at Williamsburg and moving through London upon Richmond. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. p. 568.] Colonel Sanders endeavored to stop the enemy at Richmond with about 500 men hastily collected, but was driven back. He was ordered to Lexington and put in command of all the mounted men which could be got together there, 2400 in all, and advanced against Scott, who now retreated by Lancaster, Stanford, and Somerset. At Lancaster the enemy was routed in a charge and 200 of them captured. Following them up with vigor, their train was destroyed and about 500 more prisoners were taken. At the Cumberland River Sanders halted, having been without rations for four days. The remnant of Scott's force had succeeded in crossing the river after abandoning the train. Scott claimed to have taken and paroled about 200 prisoners in the first part of his raid, but such irregular paroles of captured men who could not be carried off were unauthorized and void. The actual casualties in Sanders's command were trifling. [Footnote:Id., pt. i. pp. 828-843; pt. ii. pp. 568, 589.]
The effect of this last raid was still further to wear out Burnside's mounted troops, but he pressed forward to the front all his infantry and organized a column for advance. In less than a week, on August 4, he was able to announce to the War Department that he had 11,000 men concentrated at Lebanon, Stanford, and Glasgow, with outposts on the Cumberland River, and that he could possibly increase this to 12,000 by reducing some posts in guard of the railway. [Footnote: Id., p. 591.] Upon this, Halleck gave to Rosecrans peremptory orders for the immediate advance of the Army of the Cumberland, directing him also to report daily the movement of each corps till he should cross the Tennessee. On the next day Burnside was ordered in like manner to advance with a column of 12,000 men upon Knoxville, on reaching which place he was to endeavor to connect with the forces under Rosecrans. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. pp.592-593.] The dispatch closed with what was called a repetition of a former order from the Secretary of War for Burnside to leave Cincinnati and take command of his moving column in person. Burnside had never dreamed of doing anything else, as everybody near him knew, though he had in fact been quite ill during the latter part of July. The mention of a former order was another sheer blunder on General Halleck's part, and Burnside indignantly protested against the imputation contained in it. [Footnote:Id., pp.593, 594.] The truth seems to be that Halleck was in such a condition of irritation over his correspondence with Rosecrans, that nothing pertaining to the Department of the Ohio was accurately placed in his mind or accurately stated when he had occasion to refer to it. In cutting the knot by peremptory orders to both armies to move, he was right, and was justified in insisting that the little column of 12,000 under Burnside should start although it could only be got together in greatest haste and with the lack of equipment occasioned by the "wear and tear" of the operations against Morgan. If, in insisting on this, he had recognized the facts and given Burnside and his troops credit for the capture of the rebel raiders and the concentration, in a week, of forces scattered over a distance of nearly a thousand miles, no one would have had a right to criticise him. The exigency fairly justified it. But to treat Burnside as if he had been only enjoying himself in Cincinnati, and his troops all quietly in camp along the Cumberland River through the whole summer,--to ignore the absence of the Ninth Corps and his own suspension of a movement already begun when he took it away,--to assume in almost every particular a basis of fact absolutely contrary to the reality and to telegraph censures for what had been done, under his own orders or strictly in harmony with them,--all this was doing a right thing in as absurdly wrong a way as was possible. A gleam of humor and the light of common sense is thrown over one incident, when Mr. Lincoln, seeing that Burnside had full right from the dispatches to suppose the Ninth Corps was to come at once to him from Vicksburg and that no one had given him any explanation, himself telegraphed that the information had been based on a statement from General Grant, who had not informed them why the troops had not been sent. "General Grant," the President quaintly added, "is a copious worker and fighter, but a very meagre writer or telegrapher. No doubt he changed his purpose for some sufficient reason, but has forgotten to notify us of it." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. p. 561.] The reference to copious work as contrasted with the copia verborum gains added point from a dispatch of Halleck to Rosecrans, quite early in the season, in which the latter is told that the cost of his telegraph dispatches is "as much or perhaps more than that of all the other generals in the field." [Footnote:Id., p. 255.] The form of the reference to Grant enables us also to read between the lines the progress he was making in reputation and in the President's confidence. He kept "pegging away," and was putting brains as well as energy into his work. The records show also that Burnside took the hint, whether intended or not, and in this campaign did not err on the side of copiousness in dispatches to Washington.
To avoid the delay which would be caused by the distribution of his mounted force to the divisions they had originally been attached to, Burnside organized these into a division under Brigadier-General S. P. Carter, and an independent brigade under Colonel F. Wolford. He also reorganized the infantry divisions of the Twenty-third Corps. The first division, under Brigadier-General J. T. Boyle, was to remain in Kentucky and protect the lines of communication. The second was put under command of Brigadier-General M. D. Manson, and the third under Brigadier-General M. S. Hascall. Each marching division was organized into two brigades with a battery of artillery attached to each brigade. Three batteries of artillery were in reserve. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. ii. pp. 553-555.]
On the 11th of August General Burnside went to Hickman's Bridge, and the forward movement was begun. [Footnote:Id., pt. iii. p. 16. Hickman's Bridge, as has already been mentioned, was at the terminus of the Central Kentucky Railroad. There, on the bank of the Kentucky River, Burnside made a fortified depot from which his wagon trains should start as a base for the supply system of his army in East Tennessee. It was called Camp Nelson in honor of the dead Kentucky general.] At this date the Confederate forces in East Tennessee under General Buckner numbered 14,733 "present for duty," with an "aggregate present" of 2000 or 3000 more. Conscious that the column of 12,000 which Halleck had directed him to start with was less than the hostile forces in the Holston valley, Burnside reduced to the utmost the garrisons and posts left behind him. Fortunately the advanced division of the Ninth Corps returning from Vicksburg reached Cincinnati on the 12th, and although the troops were wholly unfit for active service by reason of malarial diseases contracted on the "Yazoo," they could relieve some of the Kentucky garrisons, and Burnside was thus enabled to increase his moving column to about 15,000 men. The earlier stages of the advance were slow, as the columns were brought into position to take up their separate lines of march and organize their supply trains for the road. On the 20th Hanson's division was at Columbia, Hascall's was at Stanford, Carter's cavalry division was at Crab Orchard, and independent brigades of cavalry under Colonels Wolford and Graham were at Somerset and Glasgow. [Footnote:Id., pt. ii. p. 548.] On that day orders were issued for the continuous march. General Julius White relieved Manson in command of the second division, and the two infantry divisions were to move on Montgomery, Tenn., Hascall's by way of Somerset, Chitwoods, and Huntsville, and White's by way of Creelsboro, Albany, and Jamestown. Carter's cavalry, which covered the extreme left flank, marched through Mt. Vernon and London to Williamsburg, where it forded the Cumberland, thence over the Jellico Mountains to Chitwoods where it became the advance of Hascall's column to Montgomery. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. ii. p. 548.] At this point the columns were united and all moved together through Emory Gap upon Kingston. Burnside accompanied the cavalry in person, and sent two detachments, one to go by way of Big Creek Gap to make a demonstration on Knoxville, and the other through Winter's Gap for the same purpose of misleading the enemy as to his line of principal movement.
Nothing could be more systematic and vigorous than the march of Burnside's columns. [Footnote: Id., p. 569.] They made from fifteen to twenty or twenty-five miles a day with the regularity of clock-work, though the route in many parts of it was most difficult. There were mountains to climb and narrow gorges to thread. Streams were to be forded, roads were to be repaired and in places to be made anew. On the 1st of September Burnside occupied Kingston, having passed through Emory Gap into East Tennessee and communicated with Crittenden's corps of Rosecrans's army. [Footnote: Itinerary, Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. ii. pp. 576-578.] Here he learned that upon the development of the joint plan of campaign of the National commanders, Bragg had withdrawn Buckner's forces south of the Tennessee at Loudon, there making them the right flank of his army about Chattanooga. There was, however, one exception in Buckner's order to withdraw. Brigadier-General John W. Frazer was left at Cumberland Gap with 2500 men, and though Buckner had on August 30th ordered him to destroy his material and retreat into Virginia, joining the command of Major-General Samuel Jones, this order was withdrawn on Frazer's representation of his ability to hold the place and that he had rations for forty days. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. ii. p. 608.] There being therefore no troops in East Tennessee to oppose its occupation, Burnside's advance-guard entered Knoxville on the 3d of September. Part of the Twenty-third Corps had been sent toward London on the 2d, and upon their approach the enemy burned the great railroad bridge at that place. A light-draught steamboat was building at Kingston, and this was captured and preserved. [Footnote: Id., pt. iii. p. 333.] It played a useful part subsequently in the transportation of supplies when the wagon-trains were broken down and the troops were reduced nearly to starvation. No sooner was Burnside in Knoxville than he put portions of his army in motion for Cumberland Gap, sixty miles northward. He had already put Colonel John F. DeCourcey (Sixteenth Ohio Infantry) in command of new troops arriving in Kentucky, and ordered him to advance against the fortifications of the gap on the north side. General Shackelford was sent with his cavalry from Knoxville, but when Burnside learned that DeCourcey and he were not strong enough to take the place, he left Knoxville in person with Colonel Samuel Gilbert's brigade of infantry and made the sixty-mile march in fifty-two hours. Frazer had refused to surrender on the summons of the subordinates; but when Burnside arrived and made the demand in person, he despaired of holding out and on the 9th of September surrendered the garrison. A considerable number got away by scattering after the flag was hauled down, but 2,205 men laid down their arms, and twelve pieces of cannon were also among the spoils. [Footnote:Id., pt. ii. pp. 548, 599, 604, 611.] DeCourcey's troops were left to garrison the fortifications, and the rest were sent to occupy the upper valley of the Holston toward the Virginia line.
On the 10th, and while still at Cumberland Gap, Burnside received a dispatch from General Crittenden with the news that he was in possession of Chattanooga, that Bragg had retreated toward Rome, Ga., and that Rosecrans hoped with his centre and right to intercept the enemy at Rome, which was sixty miles south of Chattanooga. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. iii. p. 523.] Everything was therefore most promising on the south, and Burnside had only to provide for driving back the Confederates under Jones, at the Virginia line, a hundred and thirty miles northeast of Knoxville. It becomes important here to estimate these distances rightly. Knoxville is a hundred and eleven miles distant from Chattanooga by the railroad, and more by the country roads. From Bristol on the northeast to Chattanooga on the southwest is two hundred and forty-two miles, which measures the length of that part of the Holston and Tennessee valley known as East Tennessee. If Rosecrans were at Rome, as General Crittenden's dispatch indicated, he was more than a hundred and seventy miles distant from Knoxville, and nearly three hundred miles from the region about Greeneville and the Watauga River, whose crossing would be the natural frontier of the upper valley, if Burnside should not be able to extend his occupation quite to the Virginia line. It will be seen therefore that the progress of the campaign had necessarily made Rosecrans's and Burnside's lines of operation widely divergent, and they were far beyond supporting distance of each other, since there was no railway communication between them, and could not be for a long time. Burnside captured some locomotives and cars at Knoxville; but bridges had been destroyed to such an extent that these were of little use to him, for the road could be operated but a short distance in either direction and the amount of rolling stock was, at most, very little. Complete success for Rosecrans, with the reopening and repair of the whole line from Nashville through Chattanooga, including the rebuilding of the great bridge at London, were the essential conditions of further co-operation between the two armies, and of the permanent existence of Burnside's in East Tennessee.
Efforts had been made to extend the lines of telegraph as Burnside advanced, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. ii. p. 574; pt. iii. p. 717.] but it took some time to do this, and even when the wires were up there occurred a difficulty in making the electric circuit, so that through all the critical part of the Chickamauga campaign, Burnside had to communicate by means of so long a line of couriers that three days was the actual time of transmittal of dispatches between himself and Washington. [Footnote: Id., pt. iii. p. 718.] The news from Rosecrans on the 10th was so reassuring that Burnside's plain duty was to apply himself to clearing the upper valley of the enemy, and then to further the great object of his expedition by giving the loyal inhabitants the means of self-government, and encouraging them to organize and arm themselves with the weapons which his wagon trains were already bringing from Kentucky. He had also to provide for his supplies, and must use the good weather of the early autumn to the utmost, for the long roads over the mountains would be practically impassable in winter. The route from Kentucky by way of Cumberland Gap was the shortest, and, on the whole, the easiest, and a great system of transportation by trains under escort was put in operation. The camp at Cumberland Gap could give this protection through the mountain district, and made a convenient stopping-place in the weary way when teams broke down or had to be replaced. Other roads were also used whilst they seemed to be safe, and the energies and resources of the quartermaster's department were strained to the utmost to bring forward arms, ammunition for cannon and muskets, food and medical supplies, and all the munitions of war. The roads were covered with herds of beeves and swine, and feeding stations for these were established and the forage had to be drawn to them, for nothing could be got, along the greater part of the route. Burnside hoped that the railway by Chattanooga would be put in repair and be open before winter should shut in, but he very prudently acted on the principle of making the most of his present means. It was well he did so, for otherwise his little army would have been starved before the winter was half over.