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their courage and fertility of resource rose, and new and more energetic means of resistance were projected which turned defeat into victory, and wrung even from their bitterest detractors reluctant applause.
The body of the Confederate strength, as has been said, was at this time at Tupelo, Miss., under malarial conditions, which gave more apprehension than the overshadowing reputation of General Pope, soon to be hailed as the ‘coming man’ and the successor of McClellan.
There were no other troops west of the Cumberland range of any consequence, except those already referred to at Vicksburg, and contiguous territory.
In East Tennessee, towards which the formidable army of General Buell was about to move, there was a force not larger than that of Gen. G. W. Morgan, soon to occupy its strongest defense.
Gen. E. Kirby Smith, a trained soldier, was in command of the department of East Tennessee with headquarters at Knoxville.
The force under him consisted only of the two small divisions of Gen. C. L. Stevenson and Gen. D. Leadbetter, with a small but efficient body of cavalry.
Gen. G. W. Morgan, of Buell's army, had already moved with his division against Cumberland Gap, and by flanking it through gaps to the south, had reached the valley on the east side, threatening to immure Stevenson in the gap as Morgan was later by the Confederates.
General Smith moved from Knoxville to meet Morgan, if he should turn in that direction; but on the 18th Stevenson was compelled to evacuate the gap before Morgan's superior numbers, and the Federals occupied the Gap. General Smith, who had been apprised of the Federal movement from Corinth, now realized the full scope of Buell's plan for the occupation of East Tennessee.
His situation was so critical that on the 12th of June, prior to the occupation of the Gap, he had applied to General Beauregard for aid, stating that his department was threatened from Cumberland Gap and Middle Tennessee.
Beauregard replied that it would be fatal to detach any troops
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
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