t the officer who brought them, also brought
the news that you were driving the enemy all along the line.
(See letters of General Knefler and Colonel Ross.) Up to that
time, therefore, I was certainly blameless.

But let me ask you to stop here, and consider the effect on my
mind and subsequent movements, of the information, thus reliably
obtained, that the battle was won. What inducement could I have
had to march away from or linger on the road to a victory? Upon
the hypothesis that the good news was true, how could I have
imagined, (had there been so much as a doubt as to the intent of
the order received,) a necessity for my command at Pittsburg
Landing?

But, proceeding. The letters further establish, that,
immediately upon receiving the order, I put my column _en
route_, to execute it.

Now comes the questions. Did I take the right road to effect the
junction with the right of the army, or one leading to Purdy,
away from the battle? Pertinent to these inquiries, General
Knefler says, that the road chosen for the movement had been
patrolled and picketted by my cavalry. By their report, if by
nothing else, I must have been posted as to its terminus. In
corroboration of this assertion please notice that General
Macaulay, General Strickland, General Thayer and General
Knefler, all allude to the fact that the head of the column was
approaching, not going away from the firing, when the
countermarch took place. Consider, further, that the most
imperative necessities of my situation, isolated as I had been
from the main army, were, to know all the communications with
that army, and to keep them clear, and in order for rapid
movement. _Not only did I know the road, but every step my
division took from the initial point of the march up to the
moment of the change of direction, was, as is well known to
every soldier in the column, a step nearer to the firing and
therefore a step nearer to the battle_. While on this inquiry,
let me add that the report of my being set right after marching
upon the wrong road has in it this much truth, and no more. When
about a mile from the position which had been occupied by the
right of the army (General Sherman's division), Captain Rowley
overtook me and told me that you had sent him to hurry me up,
and that our lines had been carried