river would avoid this danger, for
_if our boats were crippled, they would drop back with the current and
escape capture_; but a still greater advantage would be its tendency
_to cut the enemy's lines in two by reaching the Memphis and
Charleston railroad_, threatening Memphis, which lies one hundred
miles due west, and no defensible point between; also Nashville, only
ninety miles northeast, and Florence and Tuscumbia, in North Alabama,
forty miles east.

"A movement in this direction would do more to relieve our friends in
Kentucky and inspire the loyal hearts in East Tennessee than the
possession of the whole of the Mississippi river. If well executed _it
would cause the evacuation of all these formidable fortifications_
upon which the rebels ground their hopes for success; and in the event
of our fleet attacking Mobile, the presence of our troops in the
northern part of Alabama _would be material aid to the fleet_.

"Again, the aid our forces would receive from the loyal men in
Tennessee would enable them soon to crush the last traitor in that
region, and the separation of the two extremes would do more than one
hundred battles for the Union cause.

"The Tennessee river is crossed by the Memphis and Louisville railroad
and the Memphis and Nashville railroad. At Hamburg the river makes the
big bend on the east, touching the northeast corner of Mississippi,
entering the northwest corner of Alabama, forming an arc to the South,
entering the State of Tennessee at the northeast corner of Alabama,
and if it does not touch the northwest corner of Georgia comes very
near it.

"It is but eight miles from Hamburg to the Memphis and Charleston
railroad, which goes through Tuscumbia, only two miles from the river,
which it crosses at Decatur, thirty miles above, intersecting with the
Nashville and Chattanooga road at Stevenson. The Tennessee river has
never less than three feet to Hamburg on the shoalest bar, and during
the fall, winter, and spring months there is always water for the
largest boats that are used on the Mississippi river.

"It follows, from the above facts, that in making the Mississippi the
key to the war in the West, or rather in overlooking the Tennessee
river, the subject is not understood by the superiors in command."

Extracts from a second paper, January 5, 1862, giving additional
particulars for the advance up the Tennessee:

"Having given you my views of the Tennessee river on my return from
t