s Danger at Spring Hill--General
Thomas Hoping that Hood might be Delayed for Three Days at Franklin.

I will now add to the foregoing sketch what seems to me necessary
to a full understanding of the operations preceding and immediately
following the battle of Franklin, referring briefly, as necessary
to an exact understanding of some things that occurred, to the
relation in which I stood to General Thomas. He was my senior by
thirteen years as a graduate of the Military Academy, where I had
known him well as my highly respected instructor. He had won high
distinction in Mexico, and had been twice brevetted for gallant
services in that war. He had seen far more service in the field
than I had, and in much larger commands, though almost always under
the immediate command of a superior--Buell, Rosecrans, and Sherman.
Even in the Atlanta campaign, then recently ended, his command was
nearly five times as large as mine. In 1864 he had already become
a brigadier-general in the regular army, having risen to that rank
by regular stages, while I was only a captain thirty-three years
of age. It will also be necessary for the reader to realize that
when I asked for and received orders to report with the Twenty-
third Corps to General Thomas in Tennessee, I felt in the fullest
degree all the deference and respect which were due to his seniority
in years and rank and services.

When I went back to Tennessee my only anxiety respecting the
situation, so far as General Thomas's personality affected it, was
on account of his constitutional habit of very deliberate action.
I was apprehensive that, in some emergency created by the action
of the daring and reckless, though not over-talented, antagonist he
would have to meet, General Thomas might not be able to determine
and act quickly enough to save from defeat his army, then understood
to be so far inferior to the enemy in numerical strength. I had
far too high an opinion of his capacity as a general to doubt for
a moment that with sufficient time in which to mature his plans to
resist Hood's invasion and to execute those plans so far as was in
his power, he would do all that the wisest generalship could
suggest.

I will also refer to the official returns of that period, which
show what troops General Thomas had elsewhere in his department
and available for service, as well as the effective strength of
the force then under my immediate command in the field, and that
of Genera