Burnside had ordered recruits and new
regiments to rendezvous in Kentucky, and prepared to bring them as
well as the Ninth Corps forward as soon as the latter should be fit
to march. Every camp and station at the rear was full of busy
preparation during the last of August and the beginning of
September, and at the front the general himself was now
concentrating his little forces to strike a blow near the Virginia
line which would make him free to move afterward in any direction
the General-in-Chief should determine.
On the 16th of September Hascall's division was echeloned along the
road from Morristown back toward Knoxville; White's division passed
Knoxville, moving up the valley to join Hascall. Hartsuff, who
commanded the Twenty-third Corps, had been disabled for field work
by trouble from his old wounds and was at Knoxville. Burnside was
also there, intending to go rapidly forward and overtake his
infantry as soon as they should approach Greeneville. In the night
the courier brought him a dispatch from Halleck, [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xxx. pt. iii. p. 617.] dated the 13th, directing a
rapid movement of all his forces in Kentucky toward East Tennessee,
where the whole Army of the Ohio was to be concentrated as soon as
possible.
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