River as rapidly as we can obtain transportation. Florence was the point
originally designated, but, on account of the enemy's forces at Corinth
and Humboldt, it is deemed best to land at Savannah and establish a
depot. The transportation will serve as ferries. The selection is left
to C.F. Smith, who commands the advance.... You do not say whether we
are to expect any reinforcements from Nashville." On the same day Buell
telegraphed: "... The establishment of your force on this side of the
river, as high up as possible, is evidently judicious.... I can join you
almost, if not quite as soon, by water, in better condition and with
greater security to your operations and mine. I believe you cannot be
too promptly nor too strongly established on the Tennessee. I shall
advance in a very few days, as soon as our transportation is ready." On
the 11th the President issued War Order No. 3. "Major-General McClellan,
having personally taken the field at the head of the Army of the
Potomac, until otherwise ordered, he is relieved from the command of the
other military departments, he retaining command of the Department of
the Potomac.

"Ordered further, that the two departments now under the respective
commands of Generals Halleck and Hunter, together with so much of that,
under General Buell, as lies west of a north and south line indefinitely
drawn through Knoxville, Tennessee, be consolidated and designated the
Department of the Mississippi; and that, until otherwise ordered,
Major-General Halleck have command of said department." Immediately upon
the receipt of this order, General Halleck ordered Buell to march his
army to Savannah. The forces of the Confederacy were gathering at
Corinth; the forces of Halleck and Buell were massing at Savannah.
Instead of a hurried dash by a flying column, to tear up a section of
railway as ancillary to a real movement elsewhere, the programme now
contemplated a struggle by armies for the retention or for the
destruction of a strategic point deemed almost vital to the Confederacy.

About the close of February, General Beauregard sent a field-battery,
supported by two regiments of infantry, to occupy the river-bluff at
Pittsburg Landing, twenty-three miles northwest from Corinth, and nine
miles above Savannah. Lieutenant-Commander Gwin, who was stationed at
Savannah with two gunboats, the Tyler and the Lexington, proceeded to
Pittsburg Landing, on March 1st, and, after a brisk skirmish, silenc