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"Well," I said, "I do not know; but as I came by Clarksville General Smith's troops were embarking to join you." Smith's troops were returned the same day. The enemy were trying to get away from Nashville and not to return to it. At this time General Albert Sidney Johnston commanded all the Confederate troops west of the Alleghany Mountains, with the exception of those in the extreme south.
But when General George H. Thomas moved upon the enemy at Mill Springs and totally routed him, inflicting a loss of some 300 killed and wounded, and forts Henry and Heiman fell into the hands of the National forces, with their armaments and about 100 prisoners, those losses seemed to dishearten the Confederate commander so much that he immediately commenced a retreat from Bowling Green on Nashville.
Add to these facts, that every country blacksmith made cutlasses from old files, &c.; most of them clumsy but serviceable weapons in a close encounter. Artillery and cavalry sabers were manufactured at New Orleans, Memphis, and Nashville, and probably at other places. In short, at the beginning of the year 1862, there was rather a surfeit than any scarcity of arms all over the South.
I got the names of all the ladies with whom Maroney was acquainted in Montgomery and the surrounding country, also of all his male friends, and, buying a large number of the Press containing this notice, I had copies directed to these persons; and also to his friends in Atlanta, Chattanooga, Nashville, Memphis, Natchez, New Orleans and Mobile, not forgetting the highly respectable ladies at the pleasant house at Chattanooga, or at Natchez, on the hill.
I appreciated the force of this dispatch later when I witnessed the condition of affairs which prompted it. It looked, indeed, as if but two courses were open: one to starve, the other to surrender or be captured. On the morning of the 20th of October I started, with my staff, and proceeded as far as Nashville.
Of course, the rebels let go their whole line, and fell back on Nashville and Island No. Ten, and to the Memphis & Charleston Railroad. Everybody was anxious to help. Boats passed up and down constantly, and very soon arrived the rebel prisoners from Donelson. I saw General Buckner on the boat, he seemed self-sufficient, and thought their loss was not really so serious to their cause as we did.
I first intended to organize this cavalry into a corps of three small divisions, to be commanded by General Wilson; but the horses were well run down, and, at Wilson's instance, I concluded to retain only one division of four thousand five hundred men, with selected horses, under General Kilpatrick, and to send General Wilson back with all the rest to Nashville, to be reorganized and to act under General Thomas in the defense of Tennessee.
Hundreds of sutlers and traders were waiting at Nashville and Chattanooga, greedy to reach Atlanta with their wares and goods, with, which to drive a profitable trade with the inhabitants. I was resolved to make Atlanta a pure military garrison or depot, with no civil population to influence military measures.
On March 2d General Halleck, having received an anonymous letter reflecting on General Grant, telegraphed to General McClellan, the General-in-Chief, at Washington: "I have had no communication with General Grant for more than a week. He left his command without my authority, and went to Nashville.
The only break in his nomadic existence was when a benevolent old gentleman found him, a friendless lad in a Nashville hospital, cursed him through a fever, and elected to educate him.
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