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

[439] he had been directed to begin a campaign in East Tennessee, and cooperate with the movements of Rosecrans; and, before the Ninth corps was returned to him by Grant, Burnside had taken the field, moving by three roads, upon Kingston and Knoxville. On the 2d of September, he seized Knoxville, a hundred and ten miles from Chattanooga, where the Tennessee river, the railroad, and many important country roads converge. Possession of the entire region of East Tennessee, from Cumberland gap to Loudon, was speedily secured, without any heavy fighting. Burnside was then ordered to concentrate his troops on the Tennessee, west of Loudon, and to connect with Rosecrans. This junction was repeatedly urged upon him by Halleck, but although the Ninth corps joined him by the 1st of October, the movement was never made. Burnside was threatened by a rebel force in West Virginia, and replied that he thought the cooperation with Rosecrans unnecessary. After Chickamauga, the enemy pushed a column into East Tennessee, driving Burnside back as far as Loudon.

On the 20th of October, Halleck wrote to Grant, at length, informing him of the objects aimed at in the movements of Rosecrans and Burnside, and of the measures directed by himself in order to attain those objects. ‘Your difficulty,’ he said, ‘will not be in the want of men, but in the means of supplying them at this season of the year. . . . . If you reoccupy the passes of Lookout mountain, which should never have been given up, you will be able to use the railroad and river from Bridgeport to Chattanooga. This seems to me a matter of vital importance, and should receive your early attention. . . . . Whatever measures you may deem proper to adopt under exist. ’