Rosecrans in that way. Burnside pointed out that this
would open the heart of East Tennessee to Bragg's cavalry or
detachments from his army. He offered to take the bolder course of
moving down the south side of the rivers, covering Knoxville and the
valley as he advanced.

Mr. Lincoln replied by authorizing Burnside to hold his present
positions, sending Rosecrans, in his own way, what help he could
spare. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 905.] Halleck's answer was an amazing
proof that he had never comprehended the campaign. He reiterated
that Burnside's orders, before leaving Kentucky and continuously
since, had been "to connect your right with General Rosecrans's
left, so that if the enemy concentrated on one, the other would be
able to assist." [Footnote: _Id_., p. 906.] If this meant anything,
it meant that Burnside was to keep within a day's march of
Rosecrans; for two days was more than enough to fight out a battle
like Chickamauga. Yet he and everybody else knew that Burnside's
supply route from Kentucky was through Cumberland Gap, and he had
warmly applauded when Burnside turned that position, and by
investing it in front and rear, had forced Frazer to surrender. He
had explicitly directed Burnside to occupy and hold the upper
Holston valley nearly or quite to the Virginia line, and one gets
weary of repeating that between these places and Chattanooga was a
breadth of two hundred miles of the kind of country Meigs had
described and more than ten days of hard marching. His present
orders are equally blind. Burnside is directed to reinforce
Rosecrans with "all your available force," yet "East Tennessee must
be held at all hazards, if possible." To "hold at all hazards" might
be understood, but what is the effect of the phrase "if possible"?
It must amount in substance to authority to do exactly what Burnside
was doing,--to hold East Tennessee with as small means as he thought
practicable, and to reinforce Rosecrans with what he could spare.

It was, on the whole, fortunate for the country that Burnside was
not in telegraphic communication with Washington sooner. Had he been
actually compelled to abandon East Tennessee on the 13th or 14th of
September, incalculable mischief would have followed. The Ninth
Corps was _en route_ for Cumberland Gap, and it with all the trains
and droves on the road must either have turned back or pushed on
blindly with no probability of effecting a junction with the
Twenty-third Corps. Even as