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

[453] further, to the front of operations in East Tennessee. This varied and complicated business was superintended directly by Grant. He first ordered the stores, on Burnside's demand; then wrote to Admiral Porter for the gunboat convoy; then instructed Burnside when and where to meet the supplies, and all the while was urging his subordinates to greater diligence, in order to secure the speedy transportation of material, without which he could not even begin his triple campaign.

For, while Thomas was to be relieved from the danger which threatened to engulf his army at Chattanooga, and Burnside was to be made ready to protect East Tennessee, and cooperate in the strategy which should direct the Army of the Cumberland, Sherman was marching across the continent, four hundred miles, from the Mississippi valley. He started from Vicksburg on the 27th of September, and arrived at Memphis on the 2d of October. It was then his duty to conduct the Fifteenth army corps, and such other troops as could be spared from Hurlbut's command, to the support of Rosecrans, marching by way of Corinth, Tuscumbia, and Decatur, to Athens, Alabama. During this long and tedious march, he was to look to Rosecrans for no supplies, and was, therefore, obliged to repair the railroad from Memphis east, as he advanced: so Halleck had ordered. But, when Grant assumed command of the military division, he at once ordered supplies from St. Louis to meet Sherman at Eastport, on the Tennessee. These were sent up the river on transports, Grant requesting Admiral Porter to convoy the steamers which conveyed them.

During all these campaigns, the national forces