, and a too great fancy for "good positions"
will sometimes prevent excellent opportunities from being improved. If I
had attacked, promptly, the whole force, in all likelihood, would have
been captured. The enemy for some reason conceived a very exaggerated
idea of our strength. Shortly after this, it was reported in
Murfreesboro', if the papers we captured spoke truth, that Wheeler's
entire corps and some infantry were stationed at Alexandria and Liberty,
harvesting the magnificent wheat crop, with which the adjacent country
teemed.

On the 10th of June, General Morgan arrived at Alexandria, and orders
were at once issued to prepare the division to march on the next day. It
soon became known to all the officers at least, that he was about to
undertake an expedition which he had long contemplated, and which he had
often solicited permission to make. This was the greatest of all his
"raids," the one known as the "Ohio raid." Although it resulted
disastrously to his own command, it had a great influence upon the
pending campaign between Bragg and Rosecrans, and greatly assisted the
former. It was beyond all comparison the grandest enterprise he ever
planned, and the one which did most honor to his genius.

The military situation in Tennessee, at that time, may be briefly
described:

General Bragg's army lay around Tullahoma, his cavalry covering his
front and stretching far out upon both wings. General Buckner was in
East Tennessee, with a force entirely inadequate to the defense of that
important region. General Bragg, confronted by Rosecrans with a vastly
superior force, dared not detach troops to strengthen Buckner. The
latter could not still further weaken his small force by sending aid to
General Bragg--if the latter should need it. General Burnside was
preparing (in Kentucky), a force, variously estimated, at from fifteen
to more than thirty thousand men, for the invasion of East Tennessee.
With this force he could easily drive out Buckner. It was estimated that
at various points in Southern Kentucky, Bowlinggreen, Glasgow, and along
the Cumberland river--and at Carthage in Tennessee, and other points in
that vicinity, there were from eight to twelve thousand Federal
troops--the greater part of them under the command of a General Judah,
whose headquarters were at Glasgow. Of these forces, some five thousand
were excellent cavalry. General Judah's official papers (captured on the
Ohio raid), gave the exact streng