the roads villainous.  Before day they were off, and at daylight the Fifteenth Corps was turned from Philadelphia for the Little Tennessee at Morgantown, where my maps represented the river as being very shallow; but it was found too deep for fording, and the water was freezing cold—­width two hundred and forty yards, depth from two to five feet; horses could ford, but artillery and men could not.  A bridge was indispensable.  General Wilson (who accompanied me) undertook to superintend the bridge, and I am under many obligations to him, as I was without an engineer, having sent Captain Jenny back from Graysville to survey our field of battle.  We had our pioneers, but only such tools as axes, picks, and spades.  General Wilson, working partly with cut wood and partly with square trestles (made of the houses of the late town of Morgantown), progressed apace, and by dark of December 4th troops and animals passed over the bridge, and by daybreak of the 5th the Fifteenth Corps (General Blair’s) was over, and Generals-Granger’s and Davis’s divisions were ready to pass; but the diagonal bracing was imperfect for, want of spikes, and the bridge broke, causing delay.  I had ordered General Blair to move out on the Marysville road five miles, there to await notice that General Granger was on a parallel road abreast of him, and in person I was at a house where the roads parted, when a messenger rode up, bringing me a few words from General Burnside, to the effect that Colonel Long had arrived at Knoxville with his cavalry, and that all was well with him there; Longstreet still lay before the place, but there were symptoms of his speedy departure.

I felt that I had accomplished the first great step in the problem for the relief of General Burnside’s army, but still urged on the work.  As soon as the bridge was mended, all the troops moved forward.  General Howard had marched from Loudon, had found a pretty good ford for his horses and wagons at Davis’s, seven miles below Morgantown, and had made an ingenious bridge of the wagons left by General Vaughn at London, on which to pass his men.  He marched by Unitia and Louisville.  On the night of the 5th all the heads of columns communicated at Marysville, where I met Major Van Buren (of General Burnside’s staff), who announced that Longstreet had the night before retreated on the Rutledge, Rogersville, and Bristol road, leading to Virginia; that General Burnside’s cavalry was on his heels; and that the general desired to see me in person as soon as I could come to Knoxville.  I ordered all the troops to halt and rest, except the two divisions of General Granger, which were ordered to move forward to Little River, and General Granger to report in person to General Burnside for orders.  His was the force originally designed to reenforce General Burnside, and it was eminently proper that it should join in the stern-chase after Longstreet.