lag still waved
in triumph from the spire of the court-house at Knoxville. The retreat of
the Confederate Army into East Tennessee in what was reported as a routed
and disorganized condition had seemed like a favorable opportunity to
carry out the long-cherished design of the Government. The movement of
large armies across the country upon a map in the War Office, although
apparently practicable, bore so little relation to actual campaigning as
to have already caused the decapitation of more than one general.

The positive refusal of General Buell to march 60,000 men into a sterile
and hostile country across a range of mountains in pursuit of an army of
equal strength with his own, when by simply turning southward he could
meet it around the western spur of the same range, although it has since
been upheld by every military authority, caused his prompt removal from
command of the army he had organized and led to victory. The army had been
slow to believe in the incapacity of General Buell, and had recognized the
wisdom of his change of front from Cumberland Gap towards Nashville, but
there were causes for dissatisfaction, which, in the absence of knowledge
as to the difficulties under which he labored were attributed to him. A
full knowledge of all the circumstances would have transferred them to the
War Department. Major-General William S. Rosecrans, the newly-appointed
commander of the Army of the Cumberland, graduated at West Point July 1,
1842, as brevet second lieutenant corps of engineers. He resigned from the
army April 1, 1854, and entered civil life at Cincinnati as a civil
engineer and architect. His energy and capability for large undertakings,
coupled with an inherent capacity for command, caused him to be selected
as superintendent of a cannel coal company in Virginia and president of
the Coal River Navigation Company.

The discovery of coal oil at this period at once attracted his attention,
and he had embarked in its manufacture when the tocsin of war called him
into the field. His first duty was as volunteer aid to General McClellan,
where his military experience rendered him very efficient in the
organization of troops. He became commander of Camp Chase, colonel on the
staff, chief engineer of the State of Ohio, and colonel Twenty-third Ohio
Volunteer Infantry, commanded later by Rutherford B. Hayes and Stanley
Matthews, and was appointed brigadier-general U. S. A., May 16, 1861.
After conducting the ca