I found General Thomas in a tavern, with most of his regiments camped about him.  He had sent a small force some miles in advance toward Cumberland Gap, under Brigadier-General Schoepf.  Remaining there a couple of days, I returned to Louisville; on the 22d of October, General Negley’s brigade arrived in boats from Pittsburg, was sent out to Camp Nolin; and the Thirty-seventh Indiana., Colonel Hazzard, and Second Minnesota, Colonel Van Cleve, also reached Louisville by rail, and were posted at Elizabethtown and Lebanon Junction.  These were the same troops which had been ordered by Mr. Cameron when at Louisville, and they were all that I received thereafter, prior to my leaving Kentucky.  On reaching Washington, Mr. Cameron called on General Thomas, as he himself afterward told me, to submit his memorandum of events during his absence, and in that memorandum was mentioned my insane request for two hundred thousand men.  By some newspaper man this was seen and published, and, before I had the least conception of it, I was universally published throughout the country as “insane, crazy,” etc.  Without any knowledge, however, of this fact, I had previously addressed to the Adjutant-General of the army at Washington this letter: 

Headquarters department op the Cumberland, Louisville, Kentucky, October 22, 1881.

To General L. Thomas, Adjutant-General, Washington, D. C.

Sir:  On my arrival at Camp Dick Robinson, I found General Thomas had stationed a Kentucky regiment at Rock Castle Hill, beyond a river of the same name, and had sent an Ohio and an Indiana regiment forward in support.  He was embarrassed for transportation, and I authorized him to hire teams, and to move his whole force nearer to his advance-guard, so as to support it, as he had information of the approach of Zollicoffer toward London.  I have just heard from him, that he had sent forward General Schoepf with Colonel Wolford’s cavalry, Colonel Steadman’s Ohio regiment, and a battery of artillery, followed on a succeeding day by a Tennessee brigade.  He had still two Kentucky regiments, the Thirty-eighth Ohio and another battery of artillery, with which he was to follow yesterday.  This force, if concentrated, should be strong enough for the purpose; at all events, it is all he had or I could give him.

I explained to you fully, when here, the supposed position of our adversaries, among which was a force in the valley of Big Sandy, supposed to be advancing on Paris, Kentucky.  General Nelson at Maysville was instructed to collect all the men he could, and Colonel Gill’s regiment of Ohio Volunteers.  Colonel Harris was already in position at Olympian Springs, and a regiment lay at Lexington, which I ordered to his support.  This leaves the line of Thomas’s operations exposed, but I cannot help it.  I explained so fully to yourself and the Secretary of War the condition of things, that I can add nothing new until further developments, You know my views that this great centre of our field is too weak, far too weak, and I have begged and implored till I dare not say more.