ht
the courier brought him a dispatch from Halleck, [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xxx. pt. iii. p. 617.] dated the 13th, directing a
rapid movement of all his forces in Kentucky toward East Tennessee,
where the whole Army of the Ohio was to be concentrated as soon as
possible. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. ii. p. 550.] He also directed
Burnside to move his infantry toward Chattanooga, giving as a reason
that Bragg might manoeuvre to turn Rosecrans's right, and in that
case Rosecrans would want to hand Chattanooga over to Burnside so
that he himself could move the whole Army of the Cumberland to meet
Bragg.

There was nothing in this dispatch which intimated that Rosecrans
was in any danger, nor was Burnside informed that Bragg had been
reinforced by Longstreet's corps. On the other hand, his information
looked to Ewell's joining Jones against himself. The object Halleck
had in view seemed to be to get the Ninth Corps and other troops now
in Kentucky into East Tennessee as rapidly as possible, and then to
move the whole Army of the Ohio down toward Rosecrans. It certainly
could not be that he wished Cumberland Gap abandoned, and the trains
and detachments coming through it from Kentucky left to the tender
mercies of Jones and his Confederates, who could capture them at
their leisure and without a blow. It was equally incredible that the
government could wish to stop the organization of the loyalists just
as weapons were being distributed to them, and to abandon them to
the enemy when their recent open demonstrations in favor of the
Union would make their condition infinitely worse than if our troops
had never come to them. The rational interpretation, and the one
Burnside gave it, was that the alternative which had been stated in
the earlier dispatch of the 11th had been settled in favor of a
general movement southward instead of eastward, and that this made
it all the more imperative that he should disembarrass himself of
General Jones and establish a line on the upper Holston which a
small force could hold, whilst he with the rest of the two corps
should move southward as soon as the Ninth Corps could make the
march from Kentucky. This was exactly what General Schofield did in
the next spring when he was ordered to join Sherman with the Army of
the Ohio; and I do not hesitate to say that it was the only thing
which an intelligent military man on the ground and knowing the
topography would think of doing. To make a panick