General Sherman was relieved from command at his own request.

Nelson's command being ordered out of East Kentucky, the rebel
forces again entered, and in small bands were depredating on Union
people in the Big Sandy Valley. The Fourteenth Kentucky under Colonel
L. P. Moore was ordered to move from Catlettsburg and advance up
the valley. General Buell finding that the rebel force had been
largely re-enforced by the advance of General Humphrey Marshall, one
of the ablest rebel generals in that part of the country, ordered
the Twenty-second Kentucky under Colonel Lindsay from Maysville to
join the Fourteenth, and Lindsay was placed in command of the two
regiments. Marshall was a graduate of West Point; he had served
in the Black Hawk War and had seen service in Mexico as a Colonel
of Kentucky cavalry, winning distinction at Buena Vista. He had now
entered the State from Virginia through Pound Gap, and had reached
a strong natural position near Paintville, where he was rapidly
increasing his army, with the intention of raising a sufficient
force--already some five thousand--to operate on General Buell's
flank and to retard his advance into Tennessee. The Forty-second
Ohio, just organized, was in a camp of instruction near Columbus,
Ohio, under its Colonel, James A. Garfield. While there, in
December, he was ordered by General Buell to move his regiment at
once to Catlettsburg, at the mouth of the Big Sandy River, and to
report in person to Louisville for orders.

Starting his regiment eastward, from Cincinnati, Garfield, on the
19th of December, reported to General Buell, who informed him that
he had been selected to command an expedition to drive Marshall
and his forces from Kentucky. That evening Garfield received his
orders, which organized the Eighteenth Brigade of the Army of the