in stragglers and small bodies, to Nashville. The strength of Morgan's band at this time was estimated at from 1,500 to 3,000.

Work was immediately commenced to repair again the road north of Nashville, but the continued presence of Morgan's force in that quarter made it impossible to carry it beyond Gallatin, except by withdrawing from the front so large a force as to preclude the idea of an advance, and I therefore determined to defer it until could be protected by a force which I hoped might come from Louisville of the new troops that were being called out. On the 16th of August I ordered Major-General Nelson to Kentucky to command, and sent with him three generals and some other officers of experience and two batteries of artillery. The position required an officer of his rank, and I had great confidence in his energy and ability.

While the enemy was producing this serious embarrassment by the operations of his large cavalry force, regular and irregular, on our long lines of communication, he was collecting a large army at various points in Tennessee from Chattanooga eastward. For a considerable time the main point of concentration was doubtful and the railroad facilites which the enemy possessed enabled him to concentrate speedily at any point. General Bragg arrived in person at Chattanooga on the 28th of July, by which time his whole force was within easy reach of that point, and from that time reports were current of his intention to assume the offensive. Sometimes they were quite positive that he was already crossing the river at Chattanooga, Kingston, and other points.

The lowest estimate that could be made of the force with which the enemy was prepared to advance, according to the best sources of information, was 60,000 men. That has, I think, been more than confirmed by the evidence before the Commission. Eye-witnesses estimated the force as high as 100,000. My dispatch of the 7th of August to the General-in-Chief, Major-General Halleck, gave information on this subject somewhat in detail and not in a discouraging tone; for I was continuing my preparation to advance, and was, in my own mind, disposed to make perhaps more than due allowance for exaggeration in the information that reached me. I was the more confident when, on the 10th August, General Halleck authorized me to call on General Grantfor two division if I should find it absolutely necessary. On the 12th I requested General Grant to send the divisions, intending to use one of them to protect my communications with Louisville and brig the other to the front but their movements were at first involved in some uncertainty. At a later period get no information of them at all, and feared that General Grant had not been able to spare them, as he was himself threatened. One of them reached Murfreesborough on the 1st and the other Nashville about the 12th of September.

Very soon the information of the enemy's intention took such shape as to leave no doubt that he was about to invade Middle Tennessee with a superior force, and to make it proper to suspend the accumulation of suplies at Stevenson and establish a depot at Decherd, as being most suitable for that disposition of my troops which the designs of the enemy, as far as they could be divined, rendered proper to oppose him. The information pointed to Nashville as his principal aim, and Justified the conclusion that at least he believed he had force enough to accomplish his object. It was ascertained that the number of my troops was quite accurately known to him. The route which he would take was altogether a matter of conjecture, to be founded on probabilities. McMinnville was mentioned very often, in the information which reached me, as the first point of attack, and they were so frequent that I deemed it proper