[Footnote: _Id_., pt. ii. p. 550.] He also directed
Burnside to move his infantry toward Chattanooga, giving as a reason
that Bragg might manoeuvre to turn Rosecrans's right, and in that
case Rosecrans would want to hand Chattanooga over to Burnside so
that he himself could move the whole Army of the Cumberland to meet
Bragg.
There was nothing in this dispatch which intimated that Rosecrans
was in any danger, nor was Burnside informed that Bragg had been
reinforced by Longstreet's corps. On the other hand, his information
looked to Ewell's joining Jones against himself. The object Halleck
had in view seemed to be to get the Ninth Corps and other troops now
in Kentucky into East Tennessee as rapidly as possible, and then to
move the whole Army of the Ohio down toward Rosecrans. It certainly
could not be that he wished Cumberland Gap abandoned, and the trains
and detachments coming through it from Kentucky left to the tender
mercies of Jones and his Confederates, who could capture them at
their leisure and without a blow. It was equally incredible that the
government could wish to stop the organization of the loyalists just
as weapons were being distributed to them, and to abandon them to
the enemy when their recent open demonstrations in favor of the
Union would make their condition infinitely worse than if our troops
had never come to them.
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