River--its objective points being Louisville and Cincinnati--was now
well defined, and had already rendered abortive General Buell's
designs on Chattanooga and East Tennessee. Therefore extraordinary
efforts on the part of the Government became necessary, and the
concentration of National troops at Louisville and Cincinnati to meet
the contingency of Bragg's reaching those points was an obvious
requirement. These troops were drawn from all sections in the West
where it was thought they could be spared, and among others I was
ordered to conduct thither--to Louisville or Cincinnati, as
subsequent developments might demand--my regiment, Hescock's battery,
the Second and Fifteenth Missouri, and the Thirty-sixth and
Forty-fourth Illinois regiments of infantry, known as the "Pea Ridge
Brigade." With this column I marched back to Corinth on the 6th of
September, 1862, for the purpose of getting railroad transportation
to Columbus, Kentucky.

At Corinth I met General Grant, who by this time had been
reestablished in favor and command somewhat, General Halleck having
departed for Washington to assume command of the army as
General-in-Chief. Before and during the activity which followed his
reinstatement, General Grant had become familiar with my services
through the transmission to Washington of information I had furnished
concerning the enemy's movements, and by reading reports of my fights
and skirmishes in front, and he was loth to let me go. Indeed, he
expressed surprise at seeing me in Corinth, and said he had not
expected me to go; he also plainly showed that he was much hurt at
the inconsiderate way in which his command was being depleted. Since
I was of the opinion that the chief field of usefulness and
opportunity was opening up in Kentucky, I did not wish him to retain
me, which he might have done, and I impressed him with my conviction,