If we inquire what means the administration gave Burnside to perform
his part of the joint task assigned him, we shall find that it was
not niggardly in doing so. His forces were at their maximum at the
end of May, when they reached but little short of 38,000 present for
duty in his whole department. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
xxiii. pt. ii. p. 380.] This included, however, all the great States
of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan as well as the eastern half
of Kentucky, and there were several camps of prisoners and posts
north of the Ohio which demanded considerable garrisons. Eight
thousand men were used for this purpose, and nobody thought this an
excess. Thirty thousand were thus left him for such posts in
Kentucky as would be necessary to cover his communications and for
his active column. He expected to make his active army about 25,000,
and the advance movements had begun when, as has been stated, he was
ordered to suspend, and to send the Ninth Corps to Grant.

The enemy in East Tennessee were under the command of General Dabney
Maury at first, but when he was sent to Mobile, General S. B.
Buckner was made the commandant. His returns of forces for May 31st
show that he had 16,267 present for duty, with which to oppose the
advance of Burnside. The information of the latter was that his
opponent had 20,000, and he reckoned on having to deal with that
number. The passes of the Cumberland Mountains were so few and so
difficult that it was by no means probable that his campaign would
be an easy one; yet the difficulties in the first occupation were
not so serious as those which might arise if Bragg were able to
maintain an interior position between the two National armies. In
that case, unless he were kept thoroughly employed by Rosecrans, he
might concentrate to crush Burnside before his decisive conflict
with the Army of the Cumberland. This was the inherent vice of a
plan which contemplated two independent armies attempting to
co-operate; and if Rosecrans had been willing to open his campaign
on the 1st of March, it is almost certain that the troops in
Kentucky would have been ordered to him. The President did not
determine to send Burnside to the West and to give him a little army
of his own till he despaired of the liberation of East Tennessee in
that season by any activity of Rosecrans. This cannot be overlooked
in any candid criticism of the summer's work.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE MORGAN RAID