543
west corner of the State with 6000 men, and by Hardee, in north-easternArkansas , with about as many raw recruits down with camp diseases andunable to move. East of the Mississippi , the northern boundary of Ten-
nessee was barely in his possession, and was held underan enemy who, for various reasons, hesitated to advance,opened the way to a ruinous navalinvasion unless it could be de-fended and held. Grant was atCairo and Paducah with 20,000men; and Polk, to oppose his in-vasion, had seized Columbus, Ky. ,with about 11,000 Confederates,and had fortified it. Tennessee autograph found inside the cover of general john-
. . STON’S POCKET-MAP OF TENNESSEE , AND WRITTEN
was twice divided : first by the three days before the battle of shiloh—
m -¥-»• 1 xl 1 xl PROBABLY IIIS LAST AUTOGRAPH.
Tennessee Kiver, and then by the
Cumberland, both of which invited the advance of a hostile force. Somesmall pretense of fortifications had been made on both rivers at Forts Henryand Donelson, near the boundary line, but practically there was nothing toprevent the Federal army from capturing Nashville , then the most importantdepot of supplies west of the Alleglianies. Hence the immediate and press-ing question for General Johnston was the defense of the Tennessee border.The mock neutrality of Kentucky , which had served as a paper barrier, wasterminated, on the 13th of September, by a formal defiance from the UnionLegislature of Kentucky. The United States Government had about 34,000volunteers and about 6000 Kentucky Home Guards assembled in the State
under General Robert Anderson, of FortSumter fame, who had with him such en-terprising corps commanders as Sherman,Thomas, and Nelson.
The Confederacy had some four thousandill-armed and ill-equipped troops at Cum-berland Gap under General Zollicoffer,guarding the only line of railroad com-munication between Virginia and Tennes-see , and overawing the Union populationof East Tennessee . This hostile sectionpenetrated the heart of the Confederacylike a wedge and flanked and weakenedGeneral Johnston ’s line of defense, requir-ing, as it did, constant vigilance andrepression.
Besides Zollicoffer’s force, General John-ston found only 4000 men available to pro-tect his [whole line against 40,000 Federaltroops. There were, it is true, some four
BIRTHPLACE OF ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON , . *
WASHINGTON, KY. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH. tllOUS&IlCl DlOrG P&W rGCTOltS IB CBBipS OI