Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 4.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

We left Burnside on the 24th of September returning in great haste to Knoxville with all the available portion of his army, to march at last to the assistance of Rosecrans. In the morning he met at Morristown the heads of columns of the Ninth corps and heard of the battle of Chickamauga. The result of this battle greatly changes his situation: he can no longer proceed on Buckner's tracks to join Rosecrans in the breach at Dalton. He halts at Knoxville with the bulk of his troops, leaving his cavalry on the banks of the Hiawassee to watch the southern roads, and asks of Halleck instructions for which the latter makes him wait a long time. The head of the general staff, wishing neither to abandon a single part of the vast territory reconquered by the Army of the Ohio, nor to refuse the co-operation of this army to the vanquished at Chickamauga, finds no other way of solving this problem than to order Burnside to have a clear understanding with Rosecrans. After several days of expectation Burnside proposes three plans for a campaign. According to the first, he should follow with the greater part of his army, say about twenty thousand men, the right bank of the Tennessee, so that, being protected by this river, he might join directly the Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga. According to the second, he should, on the contrary, come down on the left bank along the railway, with some fifteen thousand men, leaving the rest of his troops in East Tennessee, and then attack the right wing of Bragg's army. If the third plan be adopted, he should take with him the troops last mentioned; but, instead of going to seek Bragg, Burnside should pass behind him, moving by way of Benton along the foot of the Alleghany Mountains, cut, at Dalton, Bragg's communications, reach Atlanta, and, crossing the entire length of Georgia, should look for a suitable point for the embarkation of troops. Subsisting on the country, taking with him no train, and tearing up the railway behind him, he will not allow himself to be overtaken after he shall have forced Bragg to raise the siege of Chattanooga to pursue him. This third plan was perhaps chimerical at that time, as Burnside's forces were not proportioned to the magnitude of the enterprise; but we have mentioned it because in it are found clearly indicated the principal characteristics of the plan that somewhat