var or
Memphis; and the best that could be done in such event would be to
weaken the points not threatened in order to reinforce the one that was.
Nothing could be gained on the National side by attacking elsewhere,
because the territory already occupied was as much as the force present
could guard. The most anxious period of the war, to me, was during the
time the Army of the Tennessee was guarding the territory acquired by
the fall of Corinth and Memphis and before I was sufficiently reinforced
to take the offensive. The enemy also had cavalry operating in our
rear, making it necessary to guard every point of the railroad back to
Columbus, on the security of which we were dependent for all our
supplies. Headquarters were connected by telegraph with all points of
the command except Memphis and the Mississippi below Columbus. With
these points communication was had by the railroad to Columbus, then
down the river by boat. To reinforce Memphis would take three or four
days, and to get an order there for troops to move elsewhere would have
taken at least two days. Memphis therefore was practically isolated
from the balance of the command. But it was in Sherman's hands. Then
too the troops were well intrenched and the gunboats made a valuable
auxiliary.

During the two months after the departure of General Halleck there was
much fighting between small bodies of the contending armies, but these
encounters were dwarfed by the magnitude of the main battles so as to be
now almost forgotten except by those engaged in them. Some of them,
however, estimated by the losses on both sides in killed and wounded,
were equal in hard fighting to most of the battles of the Mexican war
which attracted so much of the attention of the public when they
occurred. About the 23d of July Colonel Ross, commanding at Bolivar,
was threatened by a large force of the enemy so that he had to be
reinforced from Jackson and Corinth. On the 27th there was skirmishing
on the Hatchie River, eight miles from Bolivar. On the 30th I learned
from Colonel P. H. Sheridan, who had been far to the south, that Bragg
in person was at Rome, Georgia, with his troops moving by rail (by way
of Mobile) to Chattanooga and his wagon train marching overland to join
him at Rome. Price was at this time at Holly Springs, Mississippi, with
a large force, and occupied Grand Junction as an outpost. I proposed to
the general-in-chief to be permitted to drive him away, b