note: Letter to Halleck, Sept. 4, 1864. "To-morrow is the day
for the draft, and I feel more interested in it than in any event
that ever transpired. I do think it has been wrong to keep our old
troops so constantly under fire. Some of these old regiments that we
had at Shiloh and Corinth have been with me ever since, and some of
them have lost seventy per cent in battle. It looks hard to put
these brigades, now numbering less than 800 men, into battle. They
feel discouraged, whereas, if we could have a steady influx of
recruits, the living would soon forget the dead. The wounded and
sick are lost to us, for once at a hospital, they become worthless.
It has been a very bad economy to kill off our best men and pay full
wages and bounties to the drift and substitutes." Official Records,
vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 793.]

CHAPTER XXI

FAREWELL TO WEST VIRGINIA--BURNSIDE IN THE DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO

Desire for field service--Changes in the Army of the
Potomac--Judgment of McClellan at that time--Our defective
knowledge--Changes in West Virginia--Errors in new
organization--Embarrassments resulting--Visit to General
Schenck--New orders from Washington--Sent to Ohio to administer the
draft--Burnside at head of the department--District of
Ohio--Headquarters at Cincinnati--Cordial relations of Governor Tod
with the military authorities--System of enrolment and
draft--Administration by Colonel Fry--Decay of the veteran
regiments--Bounty-jumping--Effects on political parties--Soldiers
voting--Burnside's military plans--East Tennessee--Rosecrans aiming
at Chattanooga--Burnside's business habits--His frankness--Stories
about him--His personal characteristics--Cincinnati as a border
city--Rebel sympathizers--Order No. 38--Challenged by
Vallandigham--The order not a new departure--Lincoln's
proclamation--General Wright's circular.

My purpose to get into active field service had not slept, and soon
after the establishment of a winter organization in the district, I
had applied to be ordered to other duty. My fixed conviction that no
useful military movements could be made across the mountain region
implied that the garrisons of West Virginia should be reduced to a
minimum and confined to the duty of defending the frontier of the
new State. The rest of the troops might properly be added to the
active columns in the field. McClellan had been relieved of command
whilst I was conducting active operations in the Kanawha vall