should be re-enforced to the last man without a moment's delay. My own movements depend so much on the enemy that I can hardly tell you what to do. If you have only the force you speak of it would not, I should say, be advisable for you to attempt a defense of Louisville, unless you are strongly intrenched. Under no circumstances should you make a fight with his whole or main force. The alternative would be to cross the river or march on this side to the mouth of Salt River and bridge it, so as to form a junction with me. But, as I tell you, so much depends upon circumstances that I must leave this question to your discretion. I only offer you my suggestions in regard to it. This much do at any rate: Send a million of rations down the river, say opposite Brandenburg, to make them safe, to be subject to my order, and have a boat bridge made to be thrown rapidly across the mouth of the Salt River for my use, if I require it. Lose no time. Steamers should be opposite Salt River subject to my orders.

Bear in mind in these arrangements that the enemy will probably have a small cavalry force at the mouth of Salt River. All steamers used for the service referred to should be kept constantly under steam and ready to escape if threatened. Communicate with me daily. I shall probably continue on the Louisville pike at least as far as Elizabethtown. I shall be at Bacon Creek to-night or beyond there if the enemy should be determined to stand at Elizabethtown. Your advance on the Louisville pike, with the means of crossing Salt pike, with the means of crossing Salt River, would undoubtedly have an important effect and perhaps give you an opportunity of acting an important part.

I received your dispatch in answer to mine from Dripping Spring.

D. C. BUELL,

Major-General, Commanding.

Braxton Bragg defeated the design. He did not march on Louisville nor dare he risk an engagement with the superior Army of the Ohio. Marched off toward Bardstown, where his subsistence was accumulated, and thereby lost the conquest he set out to accomplish. General Buell marched into Louisville, incorporated into his army the raw recruits that had been gathered there, and out vigorously in search of the enemy. His army from Tennessee, numbering over 45,000, was joined by an army of 48,000, while the enemy he went out to fight had not over 60,000 men. The doubt and hesitation which seemed to paralyze his movements on the retreat from North Alabama to Louisville vanished, and what the clear-headed, energetic general could do was done. Sending Sill's division to hold Kirby Smith in check near Frankfort, General Buell divided the Army of the Ohio on three different roads converging on Bardstown and set out in a vigorous pursuit of Bragg. Bragg retired from bardstown to Perryville, closely pressed by Buell. At Perryville the rebel evidently expected to fall in with Kirby Smith. Kirby Smith was not there, and Bragg found it necessary to check the farther advance of our army until Kirby Smith could come to his assistance. Of this fact General Buell was evidently well acquainted. He warned his subordinate generals of the approaching struggle, and on the morning of the 8th we find the immense army in line of battle, prepared to advance upon the enemy.

And here he fell into the same state of doubt and confusion that marked the retreat from Nashville, and this continued until the rebel invaders were safe out of Kentucky. After getting his force into line by noon on the 8th why he delayed the attack until the 9th we have been unable to understand; nor has the Commission been favored with a reasonable explanation. It was evidently the policy to overwhelm Bragg before he could form his junction with Smith. This junction General Buell had feared from the first moment he began his retreat from Nashville. Here was the long-wished-for opportunity, and yet his army was to be kept in line, suffering for the water which the enemy held possession, of from noon of the 8th till morning of the 9th. What else could Bragg desire? The rebel general evidently misunderstood the design, for observing that McCook, in command of the left wing, had broken his line and was moving in column to the water the soldiers