t noteworthy incident. I reached
Bowling Green with a force much reduced by the losses sustained in
the battle of Perryville and by sickness. I had started from
Louisville on October 1 with twelve regiments of infantry--four old
and eight new ones--and two batteries, but many poor fellows,
overcome by fatigue, and diseases induced by the heat, dust, and
drought of the season, had to be left at roadside hospitals. This
was particularly the case with the new regiments, the men of which,
much depressed by homesickness, and not yet inured to campaigning,
fell easy victims to the hardships of war.

At Bowling Green General Buell was relieved, General W. S. Rosecrans
succeeding him. The army as a whole did not manifest much regret at
the change of commanders, for the campaign from Louisville on was
looked upon generally as a lamentable failure, yet there were many
who still had the utmost confidence in General Buell, and they
repelled with some asperity the reflections cast upon him by his
critics. These admirers held him blameless throughout for the
blunders of the campaign, but the greater number laid every error at
his door, and even went to the absurdity of challenging his loyalty
in a mild way, but they particularly charged incompetency at
Perryville, where McCook's corps was so badly crippled while nearly
30,000 Union troops were idle on the field, or within striking
distance. With these it was no use to argue that Buell's accident
stood in the way of his activity, nor that he did not know that the
action had assumed the proportions of a battle. The physical
disability was denied or contested, but even granting this, his
detractors claimed that it did not excuse his ignorance of the true
condition of the fight, and finally worsted his champions by pointing
out that Bragg's retreat by way of Harrodsburg beyond Dick's River so
jeopardized the Confederate army, that had a skillful and energetic
advance of the Union troops been made, instead of wasting precious
time in slow and unnecessary tactical manoeuvres, the enemy could
have been destroyed before he could quit the State of Kentucky.

CHAPTER XII.

MOVING TO BOWLING GREEN--JAMES CARD, THE SCOUT AND GUIDE--GENERAL
SILL--COLONEL SCHAEFER--COLONEL G. W. ROBERTS--MOVEMENT ON
MURFREESBORO'--OPENING OF THE BATTLE OF STONE RIVER.

My division had moved from Crab Orchard to Bowling Green by easy
marches, reaching this place November 1. General Rosecrans assum