[Footnote: _Id_., p. 331.] It was now the 15th of
May, and he sent a confidential staff officer again to Rosecrans to
try to settle a common plan of operations. On the 18th Halleck had
heard of Bragg's army being weakened to give General Joseph E.
Johnston a force with which to relieve Pemberton at Vicksburg, and
he became urgent for both Rosecrans and Burnside to advance.
[Footnote: _Id_., p. 337.] He thought it probable that raids would
be attempted by the enemy to distract attention from his real
object, and pointed out concentration and advance as the best way to
protect the rear as well as to reach the enfeebled adversary.
Burnside hastened in good faith his preparations for movement. He
was collecting a pack mule train to supply the lack of wagons, and
put his detachments in motion to concentrate. He begged for the
third division of his corps (Getty's), which had been detained in
the Army of the Potomac and could not yet be spared, but did not
wait for it. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 338.] By the 1st of June he was
ready to leave in person for the front, and on the 3d was at
Lexington, definitely committed to the movement into East Tennessee.
There he was met by an order from Halleck to send 8000 men at once
to reinforce General Grant at Vicksburg.
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