It was, on the whole, fortunate for the country that Burnside was
not in telegraphic communication with Washington sooner. Had he been
actually compelled to abandon East Tennessee on the 13th or 14th of
September, incalculable mischief would have followed. The Ninth
Corps was _en route_ for Cumberland Gap, and it with all the trains
and droves on the road must either have turned back or pushed on
blindly with no probability of effecting a junction with the
Twenty-third Corps. Even as it was, the terror in East Tennessee,
when it became known that they were likely to be abandoned, was
something fearful. Public and private men united in passionate
protests, and the common people stood aghast. Two of the most
prominent citizens only expressed the universal feeling when, in a
dispatch to Mr. Lincoln, they used such language as this,--
"In the name of Christianity and humanity, in the name of God and
liberty, for the sake of their wives and children and everything
they hold sacred and dear on earth, the loyal people of Tennessee
appeal to you and implore you not to abandon them again to the
merciless dominion of the rebels, by the withdrawal of the Union
forces from East Tennessee.
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