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[222] Buell from command, appointing Maj.-Gen. Rosecrans in his stead.

If the disappointment on our side at the escape of Bragg with his plunder was great, the chagrin of the Rebels was even greater. They had so loudly and boastingly proclaimed that they entered Kentucky to stay, that they had incited their partisans throughout the State to compromise themselves by demonstrations which were now shown to have been rash and useless; so that thousands of the more prominent were impelled to fly with Bragg, who embarrassed his march and devoured his scanty supplies, yet were of no value to the cause when they had together entered — not in triumph — their beloved Dixie. Bragg's invasion had demonstrated afresh the antagonism of at least two-thirds of the Kentuckians to the Rebellion — a demonstration more conclusive than that uniformly afforded by her elections, because there could now be no pretense that the people were overawed or their verdict corrupted. For weeks, a gallant, formidable, triumphant Rebel army had held undisputed possession of the heart of the State; its cavalry had traversed two-thirds of it, affording opportunity and solicitation to all who were inclined to enter the Confederate service; their cause had enjoyed the prestige of several brilliant and profitable successes, while the Union forces everywhere fled before them, or made a stand only to be routed; yet the number of recruits to their standard was confessedly moderate. Excepting in a few of the rich slaveholding counties around Lexington, and in that south-western portion of the State which Bragg failed to reach, those in sympathy with the Rebellion were everywhere a decided and in many counties an inconsiderable minority.1

The transfer of Gen. Halleck to Washington had left Gen. Grant in command of the district of West Tennessee, with his headquarters at Jackson or at Bolivar, while Gen. Rosecrans was left in command in northern Mississippi and Alabama, when Gen. Buell, taking2 two of his divisions, moved northward in pursuit of Bragg. Rosecrans was at Tuscumbia when advised,3 by telegram from Gen. Grant, that a considerable Rebel force was moving northward between them, and that its cavalry had already attacked Bolivar, and cut the line of railroad between that post and Jackson. Hercupon, leaving Iuka in charge of Col. R. C. Murphy, 8th Wisconsin, Rosecrans moved castward with Stanley's division to his old encampment at Clear creek. seven miles from Corinth. Murphy precipitately abandoned his post on the approach of the Rebel cavalry, allowing a large amount of stores, with 680 barrels of flour, to fall into the hands of the enemy. A reconnoissance in

1 Pollard says:

It is to be admitted that the South was bitterly disappointed in the manifestations of public sentiment in Kentucky; that the exhibitions of sympathy in this State were meager and sentimental, and amounted to but little practical aid of our cause. Indeed, no subject was at once more dispiriting and perplexing to the South than the cautions and unmanly reception given to our armies both in Kentucky and Maryland. The references we have made to the sentiment of each of these States leaves but little room to doubt the general conclusion, that the dread of Yankee vengeance and love of property were too powerful to make them take risks against these in favor of a cause for which their people had a mere preference, without any attachments to it higher than those of selfish calculation.

2 Aug. 20.

3 About Sept. 1.

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