carbine in the hands of the troops. In the infantry arms of two on three different calibers could frequently be found in the same regiment, and many of these were of foreign make, and unfit for service from various defects which rendered them unsafe or unreliable. The troops were but little instructed some of them not at all, and four or five general and perhaps as many staff officers embraced the whole military experience in the department. Officers having no rank whatever were acting as generals and staff officers under conditioned promises of appointment, and the supplies and equipment were in many respects deficient and defective. There was not transportation enough not already employed to serve 20,000 men two days' march from a depot or line of railroad.

There first thing to be done was to organize, arm, equip, and mobilize this heterogeneous mass, and this was both a difficult and tedious work. The Kentucky troops had to be collected from remote quarters and the fractions consolidated organized; a work which the Military Board of the State had commenced before my arrival. Supplies of every kind had to be procured; a difficult matter, owing to the quantity suddenly required to supply the enormous force the Government was calling into service. In a word, pretty much everything necessary to make an army of soldiers had to be done. But little assistance could be obtained from abroad. Experienced staff officers could not be obtained. I expected two regular batteries from Missouri. About the 1st of January two companies of artillery, without batteries, making together about 70 men, with one officer, reported to me. The expectation of a regiment of regular cavalry resulted even worse than that. After my arrival at Nashville two companies reported, with about 70 men. New regiments began to report occasionally very soon after my arrival, and from the 26th of November to the 1st of January several regiments that had seen some service joined from Western Virginia. About the last of December some fourteen raw regiments were received from Ohio and Indiana. The force was afterward further from time to time. In the mean time the enemy had also received considerable accessions to his strength.

The organization of the troops into brigades and divisions was effected without delay as fast as they arrived. It was made a rule in the organization not to group the regiments by States, but to represent as many States as possible in each brigade; an arrangement which was attended with the happiest results in the discipline and tone of the army.

The instructions which I received on leaving Washington pressed upon me the importance of sending a column into East Tennessee. While the organization of my army and the preparation of transportation to enable it to move were going on I studied the subject very carefully, and also suggested a plan of campaign against Nashville, and expressed my views very fully to the general-in-chief with reference to both. I said that the campaign to east Tennessee would give occupation to 30,000 men-20,000 to enter the State, with a reserve of 10,000 on the line of communications; and I stated what means would be required to supply the force at such a distance-200 miles by wagon transportation, a good part of the way through a barren, mountainous region. For a campaign against Nashville I proposed to march rapidly against that city, passing to the left of Bowling Green through Glasgow and Gallation, while a force from Missouri should ascend the Cumberland River under the protection of gunboats. This was essential, because to make the movement successful it would be necessary to