ey is often
interpreted by governments into capacity for command.

Reaching the southern bank of the Tennessee, Hood asked to be relieved,
and a telegraphic order assigned me to the duty. At Tupelo, on the
Mobile and Ohio Railway, a hundred and odd miles north of Meridian, I
met him and the remains of his army. Within my experience were assaults
on positions, in which heavy losses were sustained without success; but
the field had been held--retreats, but preceded by repulse of the foe
and followed by victory. This was my first view of a beaten army, an
army that for four years had shown a constancy worthy of the "Ten
Thousand"; and a painful sight it was. Many guns and small arms had been
lost, and the ranks were depleted by thousands of prisoners and missing.
Blankets, shoes, clothing, and accouterments were wanting. I have
written of the unusual severity of the weather in the latter part of
November, and it was now near January. Some men perished by frost; many
had the extremities severely bitten. Fleming, the active superintendent
mentioned, strained the resources of his railway to transport the troops
to the vicinity of Meridian, where timber for shelter and fuel was
abundant and supplies convenient; and every energy was exerted to
reequip them.

Sherman was now in possession of Savannah, but an interior line of rail
by Columbus, Macon, and Augusta, Georgia, and Columbia, South Carolina,
was open. Mobile was not immediately threatened, and was of inferior
importance as compared with the safety of Lee's army at Petersburg.
Unless a force could be interposed between Sherman and Lee's rear, the
game would be over when the former moved. Accordingly, I dispatched to
General Lee the suggestion of sending the "Army of Tennessee" to North
Carolina, where Johnston had been restored to command. He approved, and
directed me to send forward the men as rapidly as possible. I had long
dismissed all thought of the future. The duty of a soldier in the field
is simple--to fight until stopped by the civil arm of his government, or
his government has ceased to exist; and military men have usually come
to grief by forgetting this simple duty.

Forrest had fought and worked hard in this last Tennessee campaign, and
his division of cavalry was broken down. By brigades it was distributed
to different points in the prairie and cane-brake regions, where forage
could be had, and I hoped for time to restore the cattle and refit the
command