s new command. His military division was now composed of four
departments and embraced all the territory west of the Alleghany
Mountains and east of the Mississippi River, together with the State of
Arkansas in the trans-Mississippi. The most easterly of these was the
Department of the Ohio, General Schofield commanding; the next was the
Department of the Cumberland, General Thomas commanding; the third the
Department of the Tennessee, General McPherson commanding; and General
Steele still commanded the trans-Mississippi, or Department of Arkansas.
The last-named department was so far away that Sherman could not
communicate with it very readily after starting on his spring campaign,
and it was therefore soon transferred from his military division to that
of the Gulf, where General Canby, who had relieved General Banks, was in
command.

The movements of the armies, as I have stated in a former chapter, were
to be simultaneous, I fixing the day to start when the season should be
far enough advanced, it was hoped, for the roads to be in a condition
for the troops to march.

General Sherman at once set himself to work preparing for the task which
was assigned him to accomplish in the spring campaign. McPherson lay at
Huntsville with about twenty-four thousand men, guarding those points of
Tennessee which were regarded as most worth holding; Thomas, with over
sixty thousand men of the Army of the Cumberland, was at Chattanooga;
and Schofield, with about fourteen thousand men, was at Knoxville. With
these three armies, numbering about one hundred thousand men in all,
Sherman was to move on the day fixed for the general advance, with a
view of destroying Johnston's army and capturing Atlanta. He visited
each of these commands to inform himself as to their condition, and it
was found to be, speaking generally, good.

One of the first matters to turn his attention to was that of getting,
before the time arrived for starting, an accumulation of supplies
forward to Chattanooga, sufficiently large to warrant a movement. He
found, when he got to that place, that the trains over the single-track
railroad, which was frequently interrupted for a day or two at a time,
were only sufficient to meet the daily wants of the troops without
bringing forward any surplus of any kind. He found, however, that
trains were being used to transport all the beef cattle, horses for the
cavalry, and even teams that were being brought to the front.