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THE CAMPAIGN OF SHILOH.

as promptly as possible to assume my new command at Columbus, “ which,”said my orders, “ is threatened by a powerful force, and the defense of whichis of vital importance.”

Dispatching Colonel Thomas Jordan, my chief of staff, to Richmond, witha view to secure from the War Department certain aids to the proper organ-ization of the troops I was to command, I left Centreville on the 2d of Feb-ruary and reached Bowling Green about the 5th. General Johnston, whomI had never seen before, welcomed me to his department with a cordiality andearnestness that made a deep impression on me at the time. As he informedme, General Buell’s army, fully 75,000 strong, was on the line of Bacon Creek,on the Louisville and Nashville railroad, about 40 miles from Bowling Green .General Grant had about 20,000 men in hand at or about Cairo , ready tomove either upon Fort Henry or Fort Donelson. General Pope, having aforce of not less than 30,000 men in Missouri , was menacing General Polk’spositions, including New Madrid , while General Halleck, exercising commandover the whole of this force of 125,000 men of all arms, had his headquartersat St. Louis .

On the other hand, General Johnston (as he stated, to my surprise) hadan “ aggregate effective ” of not over 45,000 men of all arms, thus distributed:at Bowling Green, his headquarters , not over 14,000; at Forts Henry andDonelson, 5500; in the quarter of Clarksville, Tennessee , 8000; besides 17,000under General Polk, chiefly at Columbus, and for the most part imperfectlyorganized, badly armed and equipped. As may be seen from any map of theregion, the chief part of this force occupied a defensive line facing north-wardly, the two salient extremities of which were Bowling Green , some 70 milesby railway in advance of Nashville , and Columbus, about 110 miles west ofBowling Green . This line was penetrated, almost centrally, by the Cumber-land and Tennessee rivers, respectively, at points in Tennessee just south ofthe Kentucky line, twelve miles apart, at which Fort Henry had been estab-lished on the east bank of the Tennessee , and Fort Donelson on the westbank of the Cumberland, thus constituting the reentering angle of the line.These vital works General Johnston described as defective in more than onerespect and unready, but said that he had sent his chief engineer to improvetheir effectiveness as far as possible. So unpromising was the situation andso different from what had been represented before I left Virginia , that myfirst impulse was to return at once; but this idea was abandoned at the ear-nest request of General Johnston. However, after an inspection of the worksat and around Bowling Green , I found that while strong against any directattack, they could be readily turned on their right, and I so stated to GeneralJohnston. His reply was, that in the event of a serious flank movement hemust evacuate the position, having no relieving army to support it. In theface of this self-evident military proposition, I recommended the immediateevacuation of a position so salient as Bowling Green , that must fall from itsown weight if turned,—leaving there only a cavalry force in observation, andconcentrating at once all our available strength at Henry and Donelson,information having just reached us of the aggressive presence of General