On the 17th of September the concentration of Burnside's infantry
toward Greeneville had so far progressed that he was preparing to go
personally to the front and lead them against the enemy. It is
noticeable in the whole campaign that he took this personal
leadership and activity on himself. In Hartsuff's condition of
health it would have been within the ordinary methods of action that
the next in rank should assume command of the Twenty-third Corps,
and that the department commander should remain at his headquarters
at Knoxville. But Hartsuff was able to attend to office business,
and so Burnside practically exchanged places with him, leaving his
subordinate with discretion to direct affairs in the department at
large, whilst he himself did the field work with his troops. He had
done it at Cumberland Gap when he received the surrender of Frazer;
he was doing it now, and he was to do it again, still later, when he
met Longstreet's advance at the crossing of the Holston River.
In preparation for an absence of some days, he wrote, on the date
last mentioned, a long dispatch to General Halleck, in the nature of
a report of the state of affairs at that date.
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