Schofield was at first disposed to regard the enemy's advance as an effort to find forage and to strip the country more bare than it already was, if that were possible. On the 18th, however, Longstreet advanced again, and threatened to cross the Holston at Strawberry Plains, scouring the country in the angle between that river and the French Broad. The rumors which reached Schofield were [Footnote: Id., p. 415.] that his real purpose was to cross the French Broad, move along the foot of Chilhowee Mountains and make his way to Johnston. It is very probable that this was his real purpose. On the 19th he was ordered to send at any rate Martin's cavalry to rejoin Johnston, [Footnote: Id., p. 772.] and to make the junction complete would so evidently please the Confederate government that it may be assumed Longstreet would do it if he saw the way open. Schofield therefore prepared to concentrate and move in either direction, but took no active step for a few days. On the 23d the information was sufficient to make it clear that Longstreet was not moving in force toward Georgia, but was retiring toward Morristown, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 449, 455.] and Schofield immediately issued orders of march to his troops to follow. The fact was that Longstreet was so much disturbed by the withdrawal of Martin's cavalry [Footnote: Martin's cavalry at this time was what remained of Wheeler's corps which had accompanied Longstreet from Bragg's army the previous autumn.] that he declared this forced him to leave East Tennessee and place his forces at Bristol on the Virginia border. On getting a second dispatch from Mr. Davis, he modified his reasons, saying that Schofield had been reinforced from Chattanooga. [Footnote:Id., pp. 788-790.] This was incorrect, for the Fourth Corps was the only part of the Army of the Cumberland which joined the Army of the Ohio at any time during the winter, and only Wood's division of it participated in Schofield's present movement. He also wrote as if he had been near enough to Knoxville to discover for himself that the fortifications were greatly strengthened;[Footnote: Id., p. 810.] but as he had not approached nearer than seventeen miles, he could hardly have gained much information on this subject. No doubt rumors of work on the defences of the city had spread through the country during the winter, but there could hardly have been any discovery at this time. The use of it to smooth the appearance of an abortive effort was only a passage in military apologetics.
I had been awaiting orders in Knoxville a fortnight when the advance against Longstreet began, and as no definite answer had come to my application for transfer, General Schofield invited me to act as his chief of staff in the field during active operations or until my assignment to permanent duty should be settled. I gladly accepted the general's proposal and joined headquarters at once. [Footnote: See Official Records vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 495.] Our little army consisted nominally of parts of three corps, but the column in the field consisted of one division of the Twenty-third Corps, under the immediate command of General Stoneman, one of the Fourth Corps under Brigadier-General Thomas J. Wood, and the skeleton of the Ninth Corps under General Parke. [Footnote: Id. p. 455.] We had also Colonel Garrard's division of cavalry. Another division of the Twenty-third Corps under Brigadier-General Milo S. Hascall was left as the garrison of Knoxville, with the heavy artillery organization under Brigadier-General Davis Tillson and a small detachment of cavalry. Hascall was particularly directed to scout far out to the eastward, watching for any attempt of the enemy to pass along the mountain base, as well as against any effort to capture the city by a coup de main.
Our marching column numbered 13,873 officers and men, distributed thus: Wood's division, 5477; Parke's detachments of two divisions of the Ninth Corps, 3031; Stoneman with the second division of the Twenty-third Corps, 3363; Garrard's cavalry, 2002. [Footnote: Id. pp. 502, 504.] Longstreet's forces were 20,787, of which 5034 were cavalry. Schofield's purpose was essentially that of a reconnoissance in force to learn definitely the composition and apparent plans of the enemy, though willing to accept a defensive battle if a favorable opportunity should occur. If Longstreet were finally leaving East Tennessee, Grant's intention was to send all troops of the Fourth Corps back to Thomas, so as to concentrate the Army of the Cumberland in preparation for the spring campaign in Georgia. [Footnote:Id., pp. 456, 490.]
On the 24th of February we were at Strawberry Plains. The long trestle bridge of the railway had been destroyed when our forces had concentrated at Knoxville a month before, and our first task was to complete a wagon bridge across the Holston so that we could move onward toward New Market and Morristown with a possibility of keeping up a supply of food. We did not wait for the bridge to be completed, however, and orders were issued on the 26th to begin crossing, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 474.] using flatboats for the men, whilst the artillery and wagons used a ford that was then passable. Grant did not expect Schofield to march his infantry farther than Strawberry Plains, but to push the reconnoissance beyond that point with cavalry. [Footnote: Id., p. 495.] Schofield, however, felt that to do his work thoroughly, his horsemen should be strongly and closely supported. On the 29th our headquarters were at New Market and the column on its way to Morristown. We overtook it in the afternoon and occupied the town that evening. As so often happens in war, our movement had hardly begun when the fine weather ended, and we marched from Strawberry Plains in pouring rain, over wretched roads which rapidly became worse. This delayed the troops and only part were at Morristown when darkness fell. These were disposed so as to cover the town in front with pickets well out, and a detachment of cavalry a mile or two farther forward. Most of the horsemen were on our flanks, covering roads by which our position could be turned.
All the information we could get pointed to an abandonment of East Tennessee by the enemy, but it was hard for us to believe that the sudden retreat of Longstreet, after his announced intention to attack Knoxville, was not under orders which indicated a plan we ought to fathom. We had heard of his first purpose at many places on our road, for it is almost impossible to keep the people of the country from learning the destination of a moving column, and now the inhabitants who remained at Morristown were aware that Longstreet's men regarded Bristol as their destination. There were, however, rumors and some evidence that Longstreet had stopped his retreat and was about to turn upon us. This called for a careful disposal of our troops and preparation for supporting them promptly with those that were still on the road. As nothing came of it, there would be no reason for mentioning it, except that it was the occasion for an amusing bit of personal experience of my own.
Some of the more pronounced Secessionists had left the town with Longstreet, through fear that the loyalists might take vengeance on them for some of the wrongs they had suffered. We occupied as headquarters a house thus vacated, but it was absolutely empty and gave us only a roof over our heads. We had a few camp stools and a camp desk or two, and slept on the bare floor wrapped in our blankets, with our saddles for pillows. Late in the evening some loyal men brought in such reports of the enemy advancing to attack us at daybreak, that as a measure of prudence determined to go the "grand rounds" an hour or two before day, and especially to visit the cavalry outpost at the front and send forward a reconnoissance from it to make sure of full warning if there was any need of it. When I was roused by the sergeant of the headquarters guard and my horse was brought to the door, it was not a night for a pleasure excursion. A cold winter rain was pouring down, and the blackness of darkness was intense. I took only a single orderly with me, buttoned my cape close over my great-coat, pulled down the rim of my felt hat and started off, trusting to my horse to keep the road till my eyes should get a little used to the darkness. As both armies had encamped around the town, the fences were of course all gone and the wagons had cut so many tracks to right and left that it seemed all road, or rather all mire and no road. Whilst we were among the camps the smouldering camp-fires were of some help, but when we got beyond these we could only splash along cautiously, steering for the smaller fires which marked the picket reserves. Beyond the line of sentries there was nothing to guide us, and keeping our direction as well as we could, we plodded on until a faint glimmer showed the camp of the cavalry outpost. It was in an open wood, and the dying camp-fires gave only light enough to show the tall trunks of the forest trees, black against a background of dull red. Part of Longstreet's army had been in cantonments here during the winter, and many of the huts were still standing, their dim outlines and irregular forms hardly visible, but giving an air of weird mystery to the surroundings. Some of these huts were occupied by the cavalry, and the first we came upon had as its tenant an Irish dragoon, and him we turned out to guide us to the captain's quarters. The occasionally flashing light only seemed to make the darkness visible, and the Irishman told us to follow him closely, "and look out," says he, "for there's pits every little way where thim ribils dug foundations for their chimbleys." He started on and I followed, keeping my horse's nose close to his shoulder. Suddenly he disappeared, and as I jerked my horse back on his haunches, Paddy sung out: "Och! I've found one, sorr!" and sure enough he had gone in, head and heels, in one of the "pits." He scrambled out and cautiously led my horse around the hole, but we had hardly gone a rod further before Pat went out again, like a candle, with "Be jabers, I've found another." But he took his mud baths good-humoredly, and led us without further accident to the captain. From him I got the reports from the vedettes at the front, and after ordering a reconnoissance to be pushed well forward, turned back to inspect the infantry line of sentinels. These were generally found on the alert and well instructed, but as we went across ditches and miry fields we came suddenly upon one asleep in a fence corner where he had tried to make some shelter from the storm. When the horses halted beside him, he sprang up bewildered, and stood bolt upright, trying to look at us, evidently uncertain whether we were rebels, but too confused to utter a single word. I ordered him to call the corporal of the guard, and asked him if that was the way he guarded the camp. He began to stammer out denials of being asleep with a foreign accent and in broken English, which made his stupidity seem more stupid. I reported him to the officer of the guard, but finding he was a raw recruit, I refrained from ordering him before a general court-martial, and directed a lighter summary punishment that his regimental officers could impose.
After examining the more important part of the line, we splashed back to quarters as day was breaking, got a fire built in our cheerless room, hung my coat, which was heavy with water, before it to dry, and crossing my mud-cased legs, sat down for half an hour of rest and revery, listening for carbine shots at the front that would tell if the scouting party had found an enemy. The rest of the staff were still sleeping, oblivious of war's alarms and preparing for the work of the day by trusting the watching to those on duty, as they would be trusted in turn when similarly on guard. How often were such incidents repeated, night and day, through campaign after campaign, till they became so familiar that it seems almost puerile to mention them!
On beginning the movement to Morristown, orders had been given to press the rebuilding of the railroad bridge at Strawberry Plains, for our continuance so far from our supplies depended upon it. We had no trains of wagons to keep up our communication with our base, and the utmost we could do was to carry four or five days' supply with us. We therefore spent three or four days in vigorous efforts to gain information of the enemy by means of our cavalry. We learned that Longstreet held the line of Bays Mountain, where the railway passes through Bull's Gap, thirteen miles above Morristown. His right flank seemed to be at Rogersville on the Holston, and his left rested near the Nolachucky beyond Greeneville. We could not learn that any of his forces except Martin's cavalry had left him, though we were mystified by the disappearance of Ransom's division from the accounts of the enemy's organization. The fact was that that officer was transferred to the cavalry command, and the organization of his division was merged in the others.
On the 2d of March Grant directed that McCook's division of cavalry should go back to Thomas as soon as they could possibly be spared, and on Schofield's reporting the results of our reconnoissances, he advised the latter not to bring on an engagement, but to content ourselves with holding as much of the country as we could. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 14.] The bill creating the grade of lieutenant-general was now the law, and Grant had been promoted to it. On the invitation of the President he was about to go to Washington for consultation, keeping in telegraphic communication with his department commanders. [Footnote: Id., p. 17.] Consequently it agreed well with his views to let affairs remain quiet during his absence. The rains continued, however, and even if he had desired further advance it would have been out of the question till the bridge at Strawberry Plains was rebuilt. The rations brought with us were exhausted, and on the 4th we withdrew the infantry fourteen miles, to a position four miles above New Market, where we hoped to be able to feed the troops with our few wagons, until the railroad should again be available.
Headquarters in the field were established at New Market, and I remained there with authority to direct and support the cavalry movements actively kept up in our front. General Schofield was thus enabled to spend part of his time at Knoxville attending to the clothing and supply of the troops, the gathering of reinforcements, return of veterans, and all the matters of department administration which centred there. In case of the necessity of combined action in Grant's absence, Thomas was authorized to assume command.