It was utterly impossible to
keep up a line of supply for an army in East Tennessee by the wagon
roads over the mountains. The railroad through Chattanooga was
indispensable for this purpose. But Mr. Lincoln had not fully
appreciated this, and was discontented that both Buell and Rosecrans
had in turn paid little attention, as it seemed, to his desire to
make the liberation of East Tennessee the primary and immediate aim
of their campaigns. He had therefore determined to show his own
faith in Burnside, and his approval of the man, by giving him a
small but active army in the field, and to carry out his cherished
purpose by having it march directly over the Cumberland Mountains,
whilst Rosecrans was allowed to carry out the plan on which the
commanders of the Cumberland army seemed, in the President's
opinion, too stubbornly bent.
Burnside's old corps, the Ninth, was taken from the Army of the
Potomac and sent to Kentucky, and a new corps, to be called the
Twenty-third, was soon authorized, to contain the Tennessee
regiments which had been in General Morgan's command, and two
divisions made up of new regiments organized in Ohio, Indiana, and
Illinois under the last call for volunteers.
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