herman and his command, that
if the enemy should fall back I would follow him even to the gates of
Vicksburg. I intended in such an event to hold the road to Grenada on
the Yallabusha and cut loose from there, expecting to establish a new
base of supplies on the Yazoo, or at Vicksburg itself, with Grenada to
fall back upon in case of failure. It should be remembered that at the
time I speak of it had not been demonstrated that an army could operate
in an enemy's territory depending upon the country for supplies. A halt
was called at Oxford with the advance seventeen miles south of there, to
bring up the road to the latter point and to bring supplies of food,
forage and munitions to the front.

On the 18th of December I received orders from Washington to divide my
command into four army corps, with General McClernand to command one of
them and to be assigned to that part of the army which was to operate
down the Mississippi. This interfered with my plans, but probably
resulted in my ultimately taking the command in person. McClernand was
at that time in Springfield, Illinois. The order was obeyed without any
delay. Dispatches were sent to him the same day in conformity.

On the 20th General Van Dorn appeared at Holly Springs, my secondary
base of supplies, captured the garrison of 1,500 men commanded by
Colonel Murphy, of the 8th Wisconsin regiment, and destroyed all our
munitions of war, food and forage. The capture was a disgraceful one to
the officer commanding but not to the troops under him. At the same
time Forrest got on our line of railroad between Jackson, Tennessee, and
Columbus, Kentucky, doing much damage to it. This cut me off from all
communication with the north for more than a week, and it was more than
two weeks before rations or forage could be issued from stores obtained
in the regular way. This demonstrated the impossibility of maintaining
so long a line of road over which to draw supplies for an army moving in
an enemy's country. I determined, therefore, to abandon my campaign
into the interior with Columbus as a base, and returned to La Grange and
Grand Junction destroying the road to my front and repairing the road to
Memphis, making the Mississippi river the line over which to draw
supplies. Pemberton was falling back at the same time.

The moment I received the news of Van Dorn's success I sent the cavalry
at the front back to drive him from the country. He had start enough to
mov