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THE DELIVERANCE

OF

EAST TENNESSEE.

THE DELIVERANCE

OF

EAST TENNESSEE.

CHAPTER I.

THE DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO.

A

FTER an interval of rest for a few weeks in Providence,

General Burnside was appointed to the command of the Department of the Ohio, which comprised the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Eastern Kentucky, with the prospective addition of East Tennessee. Headquarters were at Cincinnati. General Burnside was assigned on the 16th of March, 1863, reached Cincinnati on the 23d, and on the 25th, assumed command,* relieving Major General Horatio G. Wright. Affairs were not in a particularly flourishing condition in that quarter. Rebel raids were devastating portions of the State of Kentucky, and causing considerable alarm and anxiety

*To the officers of the commissioned staff of the corps, there were several additions at the time that General Burnside was appointed to the command of the Department of the Ohio. Among these are especially to be mentioned Mr. Daniel R. Larned, appointed March 13th, 1863, Assistant Adjutant General, with the rank of Captain, and Mr. W. Harrison French, who was appointed Commissary of Subsistence, with the rank of Captain, February 19th, 1863. Captain Larned had been General Burnside's private secretary from the beginning of the North Carolina expedition, and continued to act in that capacity until the end of the war, when he retired with the brevet of Lieutenant Colonel, Captain French had been assistant secretary.

among the inhabitants. Considerable disaffection, amounting in some cases to actual disloyalty, existed in certain parts of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Large numbers of rebel prisoners were confined in camps and barracks on Johnson's Island, and in the immediate neighborhood of the city of Chicago, and it was known that rebel sympathizers, outside the prison walls, were ready to afford aid and comfort to the prisoners. The Governors of the States were disposed to yield all needed assistance to the military authorities, but, as martial law had not been proclaimed in the Department, except in Kentucky, freedom of speech and of the press was exercised to an extent but a little removed from license. Such extreme liberty, in case of a civil war, becomes absolutely dangerous and injurious to the welfare of the country. The management of affairs required the utmost tact and ability on the part of the officer commanding the Department.

General Burnside, immediately upon his appointment, saw the necessity of a larger military force than was then in the Department, for the purpose of restoring the peace of Kentucky, of impressing the disaffected among the people of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois with a wholesome sense of the presence of military authority, and of accomplishing the deliverance of East Tennessee. He requested and obtained permission for the transfer of the two divisions of the Ninth Corps, then in camp at Newport News, under Generals Willcox and Sturgis, to his new command. Upon the departure of the corps, General Sturgis was relieved of his command, and General Robert B. Potter assigned to the position.* This reënforcement was rendered especially necessary at that time, as the rebel General Pegram, with a force of three thousand men, was devastating central Kentucky almost without opposition, had plundered much from the residents along his line of march, had captured and occupied several towns, had penetrated as far as Danville, and was even threatening Louisville with capture, and Indiana

* Colonel Potter, of the 51st New York, was promoted to Brigadier General on the 13th of March, 1863,

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