TE OF THE DIFFERENT CORPS COMMANDERS.

CONCLUSION

APPENDIX

CHAPTER XL.

FIRST MEETING WITH SECRETARY STANTON--GENERAL ROSECRANS--COMMANDING
MILITARY DIVISION OF MISSISSIPPI--ANDREW JOHNSON'S ADDRESS--ARRIVAL AT
CHATTANOOGA.

The reply (to my telegram of October 16, 1863, from Cairo, announcing my
arrival at that point) came on the morning of the 17th, directing me to
proceed immediately to the Galt House, Louisville, where I would meet an
officer of the War Department with my instructions. I left Cairo within
an hour or two after the receipt of this dispatch, going by rail via
Indianapolis. Just as the train I was on was starting out of the depot
at Indianapolis a messenger came running up to stop it, saying the
Secretary of War was coming into the station and wanted to see me.

I had never met Mr. Stanton up to that time, though we had held frequent
conversations over the wires the year before, when I was in Tennessee.
Occasionally at night he would order the wires between the War
Department and my headquarters to be connected, and we would hold a
conversation for an hour or two. On this occasion the Secretary was
accompanied by Governor Brough of Ohio, whom I had never met, though he
and my father had been old acquaintances. Mr. Stanton dismissed the
special train that had brought him to Indianapolis, and accompanied me
to Louisville.

Up to this time no hint had been given me of what was wanted after I
left Vicksburg, except the suggestion in one of Halleck's dispatches
that I had better go to Nashville and superintend the operation of
troops sent to relieve Rosecrans. Soon after we started the Secretary
handed me two orders, saying that I might take my choice of them. The
two were identical in all but one particular. Both created the
"Military Division of Mississippi," (giving me the command) composed of
the Departments of the Ohio, the Cumberland, and the Tennessee, and all
the territory from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi River north of
Banks's command in the south-west. One order left the department
commanders as they were, while the other relieved Rosecrans and assigned
Thomas to his place. I accepted the latter. We reached Louisville
after night and, if I remember rightly, in a cold, drizzling rain. The
Secretary of War told me afterwards that he caught a cold on that
occasion from which he never expected to recover. He never did.

A day was spent in Louisville, the Secretary giv