bre for a single regiment. We made the
best of the situation, and whilst keeping "headquarters" informed of
our lack, were ready to do our best with the means we had. No
attention was paid, perhaps none could be paid, to our
recommendations for any special supplies or means adapted to the
peculiar character of our work. We received, in driblets, small
supplies of the regulation wagons, some droves of unbroken mules,
some ordnance stores, and a fair amount of clothing. Subsistence
stores had never been lacking, and the energy of the district
quartermaster and commissary kept our little army always well fed.

The formal change in department commanders took place on the 29th of
March, Fremont having reached Wheeling the day before. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xii. pt. i. p. 4.] Mr. Lincoln's desire by
some means to free the loyal people of East Tennessee from the
oppressive sway of the Confederates showed itself in the
instructions given to all the military officers in the West. He had
been pressing the point from the beginning. It had entered into
McClellan's and Rosecrans's plans of the last campaign. It had been
the object of General George H. Thomas's organization of troops at
Camp Dick Robinson in Kentucky. For it General Ormsby Mitchell had
labored to prepare a column at Cincinnati. It was not accomplished
till the autumn of 1863, when Rosecrans occupied Chattanooga and
Burnside reached Knoxville; but there had never been a day's
cessation of the President's urgency to have it accomplished. It was
prominent in his mind when he organized the Mountain Department, and
Fremont was called upon to suggest a plan to this end as soon as he
was appointed. His choice was to assemble the forces of his
department in Kentucky at the southern terminus of the Central
Kentucky Railroad, at Nicholasville, and to march southward directly
to Knoxville, upon what was substantially the line taken by Burnside
a year and a half later. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt.
i. p. 7.] Fremont was mistaken, however, in saying that from
Nicholasville to Knoxville supplies could be "transported over level
and good roads." General Buell had, on the 1st of February,
[Footnote: _Id_., vol. vii. p. 931.] reported that line to be some
two hundred miles long from the end of the railway to Knoxville, the
whole of it mountainous, and the roads bad. He estimated a train of
a thousand wagons, constantly going and returning, as needful to
supp