rs released by you and
others on parole, not to serve again till duly exchanged.

Although the enemy by this disgraceful means has been able to
concentrate in Georgia and Alabama a much larger force than we
anticipated, your armies will be abundantly able to defeat him.
Your difficulty will not be in the want of men, but in the means of
supplying them at this season of the year. A single-track railroad
can supply an army of sixty or seventy thousand men, with the usual
number of cavalry and artillery; but beyond that number, or with a
large mounted force, the difficulty of supply is very great.

I do not know the present condition of the road from Nashville to
Decatur, but, if practicable to repair it, the use of that triangle
will be of great assistance to you. I hope, also, that the recent
rise of water in the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers will enable
you to employ water transportation to Nashville, Eastport, or
Florence.

If you reoccupy the passes of Lookout Mountain, which should never
have been given up, you will be able to use the railroad and river
from Bridgeport to Chattanooga. This seems to me a matter of vital
importance, and should receive your early attention.

I submit this summary in the hope that it will assist you in fully
understanding the objects of the campaign, and the means of
attaining these objects. Probably the Secretary of War, in his
interviews with you at Louisville, has gone over the same ground.
Whatever measures you may deem proper to adopt under existing
circumstances, you will receive all possible assistance from the
authorities at Washington. You have never, heretofore, complained
that such assistance has not been afforded you in your operations,
and I think you will have no cause of complaint in your present
campaign. Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. W. HALLECK, General-in-Chief

General Frank P. Blair, who was then ahead with the two divisions
of Osterhaus and John E. Smith, was temporarily assigned to the
command of the Fifteenth Corps. General Hurlbut remained at
Memphis in command of the Sixteenth Corps, and General McPherson at
Vicksburg with the Seventeenth. These three corps made up the Army
of the Tennessee. I was still busy in pushing forward the repairs
to the railroad bridge at Bear Creek, and in patching up the many
breaks between it and Tuscumbia, when on the 27th of October, as I
sat on the porch of a house, I was approached by a dirty,