to Holly Springs, and, may be, Grenada, completing railroad and
telegraph as I go."

At this time my command was holding the Mobile and Ohio railroad from
about twenty-five miles south of Corinth, north to Columbus, Kentucky;
the Mississippi Central from Bolivar north to its junction with the
Mobile and Ohio; the Memphis and Charleston from Corinth east to Bear
Creek, and the Mississippi River from Cairo to Memphis. My entire
command was no more than was necessary to hold these lines, and hardly
that if kept on the defensive. By moving against the enemy and into his
unsubdued, or not yet captured, territory, driving their army before us,
these lines would nearly hold themselves; thus affording a large force
for field operations. My moving force at that time was about 30,000
men, and I estimated the enemy confronting me, under Pemberton, at about
the same number. General McPherson commanded my left wing and General
C. S. Hamilton the centre, while Sherman was at Memphis with the right
wing. Pemberton was fortified at the Tallahatchie, but occupied Holly
Springs and Grand Junction on the Mississippi Central railroad. On the
8th we occupied Grand Junction and La Grange, throwing a considerable
force seven or eight miles south, along the line of the railroad. The
road from Bolivar forward was repaired and put in running order as the
troops advanced.

Up to this time it had been regarded as an axiom in war that large
bodies of troops must operate from a base of supplies which they always
covered and guarded in all forward movements. There was delay therefore
in repairing the road back, and in gathering and forwarding supplies to
the front.

By my orders, and in accordance with previous instructions from
Washington, all the forage within reach was collected under the
supervision of the chief quartermaster and the provisions under the
chief commissary, receipts being given when there was any one to take
them; the supplies in any event to be accounted for as government
stores. The stock was bountiful, but still it gave me no idea of the
possibility of supplying a moving column in an enemy's country from the
country itself.

It was at this point, probably, where the first idea of a "Freedman's
Bureau" took its origin. Orders of the government prohibited the
expulsion of the negroes from the protection of the army, when they came
in voluntarily. Humanity forbade allowing them to starve. With such an
army of the