s danger he will be from Columbus. It seems to me that a real or
feigned attack on Columbus from up-river at the same time would either
prevent this, or compensate for it by throwing Columbus into our hands."

Similar questions also went to Buell, and their replies showed that no
concert, arrangement, or plans existed, and that Halleck was not ready
to cooeperate. The correspondence started by the President's inquiry for
the first time clearly brought out an estimate of the Confederate
strength opposed to a southward movement in the West. Since the
Confederate invasion of Kentucky on September 4, the rebels had so
strongly fortified Columbus on the Mississippi River that it came to be
called the "Gibraltar of the West," and now had a garrison of twenty
thousand to hold it; while General Buckner was supposed to have a force
of forty thousand at Bowling Green on the railroad between Louisville
and Nashville. For more than a month Buell and Halleck had been aware
that a joint river and land expedition southward up the Tennessee or the
Cumberland River, which would outflank both positions and cause their
evacuation, was practicable with but little opposition. Yet neither
Buell nor Halleck had exchanged a word about it, or made the slightest
preparation to begin it; each being busy in his own field, and with his
own plans. Even now, when the President had started the subject, Halleck
replied that it would be bad strategy for himself to move against
Columbus, or Buell against Bowling Green; but he had nothing to say
about a Tennessee River expedition, or cooeperation with Buell to effect
it, except by indirectly complaining that to withdraw troops from
Missouri would risk the loss of that State.

The President, however, was no longer satisfied with indecision and
excuses, and telegraphed to Buell on January 7:

"Please name as early a day as you safely can on or before which you can
be ready to move southward in concert with Major-General Halleck. Delay
is ruining us, and it is indispensable for me to have something
definite. I send a like despatch to Major-General Halleck."

To this Buell made no direct reply, while Halleck answered that he had
asked Buell to designate a date for a demonstration, and explained two
days later: "I can make, with the gunboats and available troops, a
pretty formidable demonstration, but no real attack." In point of fact,
Halleck had on the previous day, January 6, written to Brigadier-General