“Head-quarters, September 2, 1863.
“General R. E. Lee,
“Commanding:
“General,—Your letter of the 31st is received. I have expressed to Generals Ewell and Hill your wishes, and am doing all that can be done to be well prepared with my own command. Our greatest difficulty will be in preparing our animals. I do not see that we can reasonably hope to accomplish much by offensive operations, unless you are strong enough to cross the Potomac. If we advance to meet the enemy on this side he will in all probability go into one of his many fortified positions. These we cannot afford to attack.
“I know but little of the condition of our affairs in the West, but am inclined to the opinion that our best opportunity for great results is in Tennessee. If we could hold the defensive here with two corps and send the other to operate in Tennessee with that army, I think that we could accomplish more than by an advance from here.
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“I remain, general, very respectfully,
“Your obedient servant,
“James Longstreet,
“Lieutenant-General.”
General Lee next wrote to inquire as to the time necessary for the movement of my corps into Tennessee. As there were but two divisions, McLaws’s and Hood’s, and Alexander’s batteries, two days was supposed to be ample time. The transportation was ordered by the quartermaster’s department at Richmond, and the divisions were made ready to board the trains as soon as they could reach us.
The success of the plan was thought from the first to depend upon its prompt and vigorous execution, and it was under those conditions that General Lee agreed to reinforce the army in Tennessee, together with the assurance that vigorous pursuit, even to the Ohio River, should follow success. The onward march was repeatedly urged, not only in return for the use of part of the army, but to relieve General Lee of apprehension from the army in front of him; but it was not until the 9th of September that the first train came to Orange Court-House to start with its load of troops. Meanwhile, General Buckner had left his post in East Tennessee and marched south to draw nearer the army under General Bragg about Chattanooga, leaving nothing of his command in East Tennessee except two thousand men at Cumberland Gap, under General Frazer, partially fortified. General Burnside had crossed the mountains, and was not only in East Tennessee, but on that very day General Frazer surrendered to him his command at Cumberland Gap without a fight.
These facts were known to the Richmond authorities at the time of our movements, but not to General Lee or myself until the move was so far advanced as to prevent recall. So that we were obliged to make the circuit through the Carolinas to Augusta, Georgia, and up by the railroad, thence through Atlanta to Dalton and Ringgold. It was the only route of transit left us. There were two routes between Richmond and Augusta, one via Wilmington, the other through Charlotte, North Carolina, but only a single track from Augusta to Chattanooga. The gauges of the roads were not uniform, nor did the roads connect at the cities (except by drays and other such conveyances). The roads had not been heavily worked before the war, so that their rolling stock was light and limited.
Instead of two days of moving, it was not until the 25th that our artillery joined us near Chattanooga. Hood’s division was first shipped, and three brigades, or the greater part of three, were landed at the railroad station, and joined General Bragg’s army on the 18th and 19th of September, but that army had been manœuvred and flanked out of Chattanooga, Buckner’s out of East Tennessee, and both were together down below the borders of Georgia.