n, he
said, could be finished in ten days, and the steamboat at Kingston
would soon be completed and ready for use. All this promised better
means of supply at an early day, though at present "twenty-odd cars"
were all the means of moving men or supplies on the portion of the
railroad within his control.

Later in the same day he received Halleck's dispatch of the 14th,
which said it was believed the enemy would concentrate to give
Rosecrans battle, and directed him to reinforce the latter with all
possible speed. [Footnote: Burnside's dispatches of the 17th in
answer to Halleck's seem to show that both those of 13th and 14th
were received by him after he had written the long one in the
morning. The internal evidence supports this idea, and his second
dispatch on the 17th acknowledges the receipt of Halleck's two
together. Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. iii. p. 718. In his
official report, however, Burnside says the dispatch of 13th was
received "on the night of the 16th" (Official Records, vol. xxx. pt.
ii. p. 550), and I have followed this statement, although his report
was not written till November, 1865, when lapse of time might easily
give rise to an error in so trifling a detail. The matter is of no
real consequence in the view I have taken of the situation.] Still,
no information was given of the movement of Longstreet to join
Bragg, and indeed it was only on the 15th that Halleck gave the news
to Rosecrans as reliable. [Footnote: Official Records, xxx. pt. ii.
p. 643.] Burnside must therefore regard the enemy concentrating in
Georgia as only the same which Rosecrans had been peremptorily
ordered to attack and which he had been supposed to be strong enough
to cope with. No time was stated at which the battle in Georgia
would probably occur. To hasten the work in hand, to put affairs at
the Virginia line in condition to be left as soon as might be, and
then to speed his forces toward Chattanooga to join in the Georgia
campaign, was plainly Burnside's duty. If it would be too rash for
Rosecrans to give battle without reinforcements, that officer was
competent to manoeuvre his army in retreat and take a defensible
position till his reinforcements could come. That course would be
certainly much wiser than to abandon East Tennessee to the enemy,
with all the consequences of such an act, quite as bad as the loss
of a battle. As matters turned out, even such instantaneous and
ruinous abandonment would not have helped