We received, in driblets, small
supplies of the regulation wagons, some droves of unbroken mules,
some ordnance stores, and a fair amount of clothing. Subsistence
stores had never been lacking, and the energy of the district
quartermaster and commissary kept our little army always well fed.
The formal change in department commanders took place on the 29th of
March, Fremont having reached Wheeling the day before. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xii. pt. i. p. 4.] Mr. Lincoln's desire by
some means to free the loyal people of East Tennessee from the
oppressive sway of the Confederates showed itself in the
instructions given to all the military officers in the West. He had
been pressing the point from the beginning. It had entered into
McClellan's and Rosecrans's plans of the last campaign. It had been
the object of General George H. Thomas's organization of troops at
Camp Dick Robinson in Kentucky. For it General Ormsby Mitchell had
labored to prepare a column at Cincinnati. It was not accomplished
till the autumn of 1863, when Rosecrans occupied Chattanooga and
Burnside reached Knoxville; but there had never been a day's
cessation of the President's urgency to have it accomplished.
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