On the morning of the 20th of October I started, with my staff, and proceeded as far as Nashville.  At that time it was not prudent to travel beyond that point by night, so I remained in Nashville until the next morning.  Here I met for the first time Andrew Johnson, Military Governor of Tennessee.  He delivered a speech of welcome.  His composure showed that it was by no means his maiden effort.  It was long, and I was in torture while he was delivering it, fearing something would be expected from me in response.  I was relieved, however, the people assembled having apparently heard enough.  At all events they commenced a general hand-shaking, which, although trying where there is so much of it, was a great relief to me in this emergency.

From Nashville I telegraphed to Burnside, who was then at Knoxville, that important points in his department ought to be fortified, so that they could be held with the least number of men; to Admiral Porter at Cairo, that Sherman’s advance had passed Eastport, Mississippi, that rations were probably on their way from St. Louis by boat for supplying his army, and requesting him to send a gunboat to convoy them; and to Thomas, suggesting that large parties should be put at work on the wagon-road then in use back to Bridgeport.

On the morning of the 21st we took the train for the front, reaching Stevenson Alabama, after dark.  Rosecrans was there on his way north.  He came into my car and we held a brief interview, in which he described very clearly the situation at Chattanooga, and made some excellent suggestions as to what should be done.  My only wonder was that he had not carried them out.  We then proceeded to Bridgeport, where we stopped for the night.  From here we took horses and made our way by Jasper and over Waldron’s Ridge to Chattanooga.  There had been much rain, and the roads were almost impassable from mud, knee-deep in places, and from wash-outs on the mountain sides.  I had been on crutches since the time of my fall in New Orleans, and had to be carried over places where it was not safe to cross on horseback.  The roads were strewn with the debris of broken wagons and the carcasses of thousands of starved mules and horses.  At Jasper, some ten or twelve miles from Bridgeport, there was a halt.  General O. O. Howard had his headquarters there.  From this point I telegraphed Burnside to make every effort to secure five hundred rounds of ammunition for his artillery and small-arms.  We stopped for the night at a little hamlet some ten or twelve miles farther on.  The next day we reached Chattanooga a little before dark.  I went directly to General Thomas’s headquarters, and remaining there a few days, until I could establish my own.