As Floyd seems to have been ignorant of what
was going on in Loup Creek valley, decisive results might have
followed from anticipating him on his line of retreat. Capturing
such a force, or, as the phrase then went, "bagging it," is easier
talked of than done; but it is quite probable that it might have
been so scattered and demoralized as to be of little further value
as an army, and considerable parts of it might have been taken
prisoners.
Rosecrans had begun the campaign in August with the announced
purpose of marching to Wytheville and Abingdon in the Holston
valley, and thence into East Tennessee. McClellan had cherished the
idea of making the Kanawha line the base of operations into the same
region; still later Fremont, and after him Halleck did the same.
Looking only at the map, it seemed an easy thing to do; but the
almost wilderness character of the intervening country with its poor
and sparsely scattered people, the weary miles of steep
mountain-roads becoming impassable in rainy weather, and the total
absence of forage for animals, were elements of the problem which
they all ignored or greatly underestimated. It was easy, sitting at
one's office table, to sweep the hand over a few inches of chart
showing next to nothing of the topography, and to say, "We will
march from here to here;" but when the march was undertaken, the
natural obstacles began to assert themselves, and one general after
another had to find apologies for failing to accomplish what ought
never to have been undertaken.
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