Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 1

[423] Grant a new command—the Military Division of the Mississippi; this was to include all the territory between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi river, excepting such as might be occupied by Banks: the three departments of the Tennessee, the Cumberland, and the Ohio were all to be subordinate to Grant. At this time, Rosecrans was in command of the Department of the Cumberland, and Burnside of that of the Ohio. The imperative necessity for cooperation between these various commands had been made painfully manifest to the government. Hitherto, each army had seemed to have a separate object, and apparently, in each department, a campaign was carried on without reference to the operations of the others. Within the last few months, indeed, Halleck had striven hard to compel Rosecrans to cooperate with Grant, but found himself utterly unable to accomplish the task; and it was now determined to cut the knot of Rosecrans's obstinacy and insubordination, by giving to Grant almost absolute control of the forces and operations west of the Alleghanies. The disaster which Rosecrans had suffered at Chickamauga hastened this decision, and the course suggested by Grant, nearly a year before, was at last forced upon the government — the concentration and combination of all the western armies under a single head, and for a single aim. Grant was to be allowed to make his own campaigns, to use the troops to accomplish his own purposes. It was a great responsibility to put upon him, but there was nothing better to do; no other general had accomplished as much as he; his past successes were the best guaranty for future ones; the danger at Chattanooga was imminent, and increasing daily; it was necessary to act at once; and tremblingly,