mpaigns in West Virginia to a successful issue he
was ordered South and assigned to command of a division in the Army of the
Mississippi under General Pope. He participated creditably in the siege of
Corinth, and after its evacuation, and the transfer of General Pope to the
eastern army assumed command of the Army of the Mississippi and District
of Corinth. His heroic defense of that post and pursuit of Van Dorn's
defeated army following closely upon his military record in West Virginia
again attracted the attention of the President and pointed him out as
eminently fitted to succeed General Buell. General Rosecrans ordered to
proceed to Cincinnati did not specify the command to which he was to be
assigned. His commission as major-general, dated September 16th, was of
much later date than the commissions of Buell, Thomas, McCook, and
Crittenden. General Thomas ranked him five months--McCook and Crittenden
two months. On opening his orders at Cincinnati he found an autograph
letter from General Halleck directing him to proceed to Louisville and
relieve General Buell in command of the Army of the Ohio. The usual method
has always been to issue simultaneous orders to both officers, thus
affording time to the officer to be relieved in which to arrange the
details of his office, but Halleck was a law unto himself, and in
relieving an army officer usually did it in a way to render it equivalent
to dismissal from the service. Rosecrans afterward referred to his visit
to Buell's headquarters as more like that of a constable bearing a writ
for the ejectment of a tenant than as a general on his way to relieve a
brother officer in command of an army. The difficulty of rank was bridged
over by antedating Rosecrans' commission to March 16th. In a subsequent
interview with General Thomas, when that splendid soldier expressed the
pleasure it would give him to serve under a general who had given such
satisfactory evidence of fitness to command, but felt doubts as to his
right to do so on account of the disparity of their rank, General
Rosecrans frankly revealed the means by which his commission had been made
to date from the period of his operations in Western Virginia, and that as
it now stood, General Thomas need have no fears of compromising his
dignity as a United States officer. The explanation was entirely
satisfactory, and no question of the superior rank of the commanding
general was ever raised. After a rest and visit to his famil