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the Sixteenth Corps present before decisive operationsagainst Hood. When the battle of Nashville was fought,Bousseau’s eight thousand or more at Murfreesboro were aswholly out of the account as if they had been north of theOhio , and nearly five thousand of Cruft’s division, besidesthe post garrison, were kept in the works at the city withGeneral Donaldson’s employes, and were not brought intothe action. The battle was fought, therefore, with a forcenumerically less than it would have been if Smith’s corpshad been entirely absent, and Bousseau and Cruft had beenin line instead. It is true that a good many new regimentshad taken the place of old ones; but these were not whatis commonly meant by raw recruits. They were always of-ficered by men of experience, and many veterans were inthe ranks. Four thousand of them swelled the old divisionsof the Fourth Corps, and there was no complaint that theydid not fight well. As to the provisional organization ofconvalescents and furloughed men of the different corpswith Sherman, their conduct in Grosvenor’s brigade in thisaction, and subsequently on the North Carolina coast, provedthey were scarcely distinguishable from veteran troopsunder their accustomed flags. But if the troops had notbeen of the best quality, there would be no less need ofhandling them according to the principles which militaryexperience has established, and a rapid concentration wouldstill be proper.
When Hood began the campaign in earnest, the firstmovements of our forces were the reverse of concentric.Granger, instead of joining Schofield, was sent a hundredmiles to the east, and the garrison at Johnsonville wastaken to the rear of Nashville . This would seem to havebeen with the idea that it was necessary to protect the rail-ways against expected raids. If so, it was an error, for had