his own headquarters. It would overburden him with business routine
which need not go beyond a department commander. He needed to be
free to give his strength to the conduct of military affairs in the
field. It was also convenient to have the active army under a triple
division of principal parts. All these reasons led him to a prompt
determination to preserve the department organizations if the War
Department would consent. The very day of his arrival at Chattanooga
(October 23) he recommended Sherman for the Department of the
Tennessee and the continuance of the others. His wish was approved
at Washington, and acted upon, so that from this time to the end of
the war the organization in the West remained what he now made it.

Before reaching Chattanooga, Grant had telegraphed to Burnside and
had received from him a detailed statement of the numbers and
positions of his troops. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt.
i. pp. 680, 681.] Burnside also laid before him the dearth of
supplies and short stock of ammunition, with the great need of
clothing. Unless the railroad to Chattanooga could be fully
reopened, he suggested making a depot at McMinnville, where was the
end of one of the branches of the railway, from which the road to
Knoxville would be considerably shorter than from Kentucky. He also
informed Grant that he had taken steps to repair the wagon road from
Clinton in East Tennessee to the mouth of South Fork of the
Cumberland, the head of steamboat navigation when the stream should
be swollen by the winter rains. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. iii. pp. 33,
34.] The problem of supplies for him was as difficult as for the
Cumberland army, and was not so soon solved. It grew more serious
still when the siege of Knoxville interrupted for a month all
communication with a base in Kentucky, in middle Tennessee, or at
Chattanooga.