is available
force. The other division was at first divided, one of the two
brigades being centrally placed at Knoxville, and the other at
Sevierville, thirty miles up the French Broad River, where it
covered the principal pass over the Smokies to Asheville, N. C. The
rest of his cavalry was at London and Kingston, where it covered the
north side of the Tennessee River and communicated with Rosecrans's
outposts above Chattanooga.

Halleck further informed Burnside that the Secretary of War directed
him to raise all the volunteers he could in East Tennessee and to
select officers for them. If he had not already enough arms and
equipments he could order them by telegraph. As to Rosecrans, the
General-in-Chief stated that he would occupy Dalton or some other
point south of Chattanooga, closing the enemy's line from Atlanta,
and when this was done, the question would be settled whether the
whole would move eastward into Virginia or southward into Georgia
and Alabama. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. iii. p.
555.] Burnside's present work being thus cut out for him, he set
himself about it with the cordial earnestness which marked his
character. He had suggested the propriety of his retiring as soon as
the surrender of Frazer had made his occupation of East Tennessee an
assured success, but he had not formally asked to be relieved.
[Footnote: _Id_., p. 523.] His reasons for doing so dated back to
the Fredericksburg campaign, in part; for he had believed that his
alternative then presented to the government, that he should be
allowed to dismiss insubordinate generals or should himself resign,
ought to have been accepted. His case had some resemblance to Pope's
when the administration approved his conduct and his courage but
retired him and restored McClellan to command, in deference to the
supposed sentiment of the Army of the Potomac. Halleck's persistent
ignoring of the officially recorded causes of the delay in this
campaign, and his assumption that the Morgan raid was not an
incident of any importance in Burnside's responsibilities, had not
tended to diminish the latter's sense of discomfort in dealing with
army head-quarters. A debilitating illness gave some added force to
his other reasons, which, however, we who knew him well understood
to be the decisive ones with him. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
xxx. pt. iii. p. 523; vol. xxxi. pt. i. p. 757.] Mr. Lincoln's
sincere friendship and confidence he never