I submit this summary in the hope that it will assist you in fully understanding the objects of the campaign, and the means of attaining these objects.  Probably the Secretary of War, in his interviews with you at Louisville, has gone over the same ground.  Whatever measures you may deem proper to adopt under existing circumstances, you will receive all possible assistance from the authorities at Washington.  You have never, heretofore, complained that such assistance has not been afforded you in your operations, and I think you will have no cause of complaint in your present campaign.  Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. W. HALLECK, General-in-Chief

General Frank P. Blair, who was then ahead with the two divisions of Osterhaus and John E. Smith, was temporarily assigned to the command of the Fifteenth Corps.  General Hurlbut remained at Memphis in command of the Sixteenth Corps, and General McPherson at Vicksburg with the Seventeenth.  These three corps made up the Army of the Tennessee.  I was still busy in pushing forward the repairs to the railroad bridge at Bear Creek, and in patching up the many breaks between it and Tuscumbia, when on the 27th of October, as I sat on the porch of a house, I was approached by a dirty, black-haired individual with mixed dress and strange demeanor, who inquired for me, and, on being assured that I was in fact the man, he handed me a letter from General Blair at Tuscumbia, and another short one, which was a telegraph-message from General Grant at Chattanooga, addressed to me through General George Crook, commanding at Huntsville, Alabama, to this effect: 

Drop all work on Memphis & Charleston Railroad, cross the Tennessee and hurry eastward with all possible dispatch toward Bridgeport, till you meet further orders from me.

U. S. GRANT.

The bearer of this message was Corporal Pike, who described to me, in his peculiar way, that General Crook had sent him in a canoe; that he had paddled down the Tennessee River, over Muscle Shoals, was fired at all the way by guerrillas, but on reaching Tuscumbia he had providentially found it in possession of our troops.  He had reported to General Blair, who sent him on to me at Iuka.  This Pike proved to be a singular character; his manner attracted my notice at once, and I got him a horse, and had him travel with us eastward to about Elkton, whence I sent him back to General Crook at Huntsville; but told him, if I could ever do him a personal service, he might apply to me.  The next spring when I was in Chattanooga, preparing for the Atlanta campaign, Corporal Pike made his appearance and asked a fulfillment of my promise.  I inquired what he wanted, and he said he wanted to do something bold, something that would make him a hero.  I explained to him, that we were getting ready to go for Joe Johnston at Dalton, that I expected to be in the neighborhood of Atlanta about the 4th of July, and wanted the bridge