fifty-nine; but quite fit for active service. Johnston had had a
picturesque career, both in and out of the army; and many on both
sides thought him likely to prove the greatest leader of the war.
He was, however, a less formidable opponent than Northerners were
apt to think. He was not a consummate genius like Lee. He had
inferior numbers and resources; and the Confederate Government
interfered with him. Yet they did have the good sense to put both
sides of the Mississippi under his unified command, including not
only Kentucky and Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas, but the whole
of the crucial stretch from Vicksburg to Port Hudson. In this
they were wiser than the Federal Government with Halleck's
command, which was neither so extensive nor so completely
unified.

Johnston took post in his own front line at Bowling Green,
Kentucky, not far south of Buell's position at Munfordville. He
was very anxious to keep a hold on Kentucky and Missouri, along
the southern frontiers of which his forces were arrayed. His
extreme right was thrown northward under General Marshall to
Prestonburg, near the border of West Virginia, in the dangerous
neighborhood of many Union mountain folk. His southern outpost on
the right was also in the same kind of danger at Cumberland Gap,
a strategic pass into the Alleghanies at a point where Kentucky,
Tennessee, and Virginia meet. Halfway west from there, to Bowling
Green the Confederates hoped to hold the Cumberland near Logan's
Cross Roads and Mill Springs. Westwards from Bowling Green
Johnston's line held positions at Fort Donelson on the
Cumberland, Fort Henry on the Tennessee, and Columbus on the
Mississippi. All his Trans-Mississippi troops were under the
command of the enthusiastic Earl Van Dorn, who hoped to end his