This would be just about half his available
force. The other division was at first divided, one of the two
brigades being centrally placed at Knoxville, and the other at
Sevierville, thirty miles up the French Broad River, where it
covered the principal pass over the Smokies to Asheville, N. C. The
rest of his cavalry was at London and Kingston, where it covered the
north side of the Tennessee River and communicated with Rosecrans's
outposts above Chattanooga.
Halleck further informed Burnside that the Secretary of War directed
him to raise all the volunteers he could in East Tennessee and to
select officers for them. If he had not already enough arms and
equipments he could order them by telegraph. As to Rosecrans, the
General-in-Chief stated that he would occupy Dalton or some other
point south of Chattanooga, closing the enemy's line from Atlanta,
and when this was done, the question would be settled whether the
whole would move eastward into Virginia or southward into Georgia
and Alabama. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. iii. p.
555.] Burnside's present work being thus cut out for him, he set
himself about it with the cordial earnestness which marked his
character.
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