fter
the battle of Franklin. If they had been ordered to Columbia by
rail, via Nashville, as soon as Hood's advance was known to General
Thomas, they must have reached Duck River some time before Hood
attempted to cross that stream. This addition to the Fourth and
Twenty-third Corps would have raised the infantry in the field to
nearly an equality with that of Hood in fact, though not nearly to
what Hood's force was then supposed to be. That increased force
would doubtless have made it possible to prevent Hood from crossing
Duck River anywhere near Columbia for several days, and perhaps to
force him to select some other line of operations, or to content
himself with sending his cavalry on another raid. In any case,
the arrival of A. J. Smith a few days later would have enabled
Thomas to assume the aggressive before Hood could have struck a
serious blow at Thomas's army in the field. In view of the earnest
desire of General Thomas to reinforce the army in the field at
Columbia, there does not appear to be any rational explanation of
the fact that he did not send those 7000 men from Chattanooga to
Columbia. His own report states the fact about those "7000 men
belonging to his [General Sherman's] column," but does not give
any reason why they were not used in his "measures to act on the
defensive." As General Thomas says: "These men had been organized
into brigades, to be made available at such points as they might
be needed." At what other point could they possibly be so much
needed as that where the two corps were trying to oppose the advance
of the enemy long enough for Thomas to get up his other reinforcements?

AVAILABLE TROOPS NOT SENT TO THE FRONT

General Thomas appears to have been puzzled by doubt whether Hood
would aim for Nashville or some point on the Nashville and Chattanooga
Railroad, and not to have realized that his own plan should have
been to concentrate all his available force into one army, so as
to move against the enemy with the greatest possible force, no
matter what the enemy might do. With the exception of those 7000
men belonging to Sherman's column, Thomas had for necessary garrisons
and railroad guards essentially the same number of men as had been
employed in that service all the preceding summer,--no more and no
less,--and the necessity for that service had not been very much
diminished, except at and about Decatur, Stevenson, and Tullahoma,
w