Memoirs of General Sherman, vol 2 | Page 2

special friend, replied that
he was very anxious that I should make specific application for the
services of General Buell by name, and inquired what I proposed to
offer him. To this I answered that, after the agreement with General

Grant that he would notify me from Washington, I could not with
propriety press the matter, but if General Buell should be assigned to
me specifically I was prepared to assign him to command all the troops
on the Mississippi River from Cairo to Natchez, comprising about three
divisions, or the equivalent of a corps d'armee. General Grant never
afterward communicated to me on the subject at all; and I inferred that
Mr. Stanton, who was notoriously vindictive in his prejudices, would
not consent to the employment of these high officers. General Buell,
toward the close of the war, published a bitter political letter, aimed at
General Grant, reflecting on his general management of the war, and
stated that both Generals Canby and Sherman had offered him a
subordinate command, which he had declined because he had once
outranked us. This was not true as to me, or Canby either, I think, for
both General Canby and I ranked him at West Point and in the old army,
and he (General Buell) was only superior to us in the date of his
commission as major-general, for a short period in 1862. This
newspaper communication, though aimed at General Grant, reacted on
himself, for it closed his military career. General Crittenden afterward
obtained authority for service, and I offered him a division, but he
declined it for the reason, as I understood it, that he had at one time
commanded a corps. He is now in the United States service,
commanding the Seventeenth Infantry. General McCook obtained a
command under General Canby, in the Department of the Gulf, where
he rendered good service, and he is also in the regular service,
lieutenant- colonel Tenth Infantry.
I returned to Nashville from Cincinnati about the 25th of March, and
started at once, in a special car attached to the regular train, to inspect
my command at the front, going to Pulaski, Tennessee, where I found
General G. M. Dodge; thence to Huntsville, Alabama, where I had left
a part of my personal staff and the records of the department during the
time we had been absent at Meridian; and there I found General
McPherson, who had arrived from Vicksburg, and had assumed
command of the Army of the Tennessee. General McPherson
accompanied me, and we proceeded by the cars to Stevenson,
Bridgeport, etc., to Chattanooga, where we spent a day or two with
General George H. Thomas, and then continued on to Knoxville, where
was General Schofield. He returned with us to Chattanooga, stopping

by the way a few hours at Loudon, where were the headquarters of the
Fourth Corps (Major-General Gordon Granger). General Granger, as
usual, was full of complaints at the treatment of his corps since I had
left him with General Burnside, at Knoxville, the preceding November;
and he stated to me personally that he had a leave of absence in his
pocket, of which he intended to take advantage very soon. About the
end of March, therefore, the three army commanders and myself were
together at Chattanooga. We had nothing like a council of war, but
conversed freely and frankly on all matters of interest then in progress
or impending. We all knew that, as soon as the spring was fairly open,
we should have to move directly against our antagonist, General Jos. E.
Johnston, then securely intrenched at Dalton, thirty miles distant; and
the purpose of our conference at the time was to ascertain our own
resources, and to distribute to each part of the army its appropriate
share of work. We discussed every possible contingency likely to arise,
and I simply instructed each army commander to make immediate
preparations for a hard campaign, regulating the distribution of supplies
that were coming up by rail from Nashville as equitably as possible.
We also agreed on some subordinate changes in the organization of the
three separate armies which were destined to take the field; among
which was the consolidation of the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps
(Howard and Slocum) into a single corps, to be commanded by General
Jos. Hooker. General Howard was to be transferred to the Fourth Corps,
vice Gordon Granger to avail himself of his leave of absence; and
General Slocum was to be ordered down the Mississippi River, to
command the District of Vicksburg. These changes required the
consent of the President, and were all in due time approved.
The great question of the campaign was one of supplies. Nashville, our
chief depot, was itself partially in a hostile country, and even the routes
of supply from Louisville