for General Buell. I answered him frankly, telling
him of my understanding with General Grant, and that
I was still awaiting the expected order of the War
Department, assigning General Buell to my command.
Colonel Fry, as General Buell’s special friend,
replied that he was very anxious that I should make
specific application for the services of General Buell
by name, and inquired what I proposed to offer him.
To this I answered that, after the agreement with
General Grant that he would notify me from Washington,
I could not with propriety press the matter, but if
General Buell should be assigned to me specifically
I was prepared to assign him to command all the troops
on the Mississippi River from Cairo to Natchez, comprising
about three divisions, or the equivalent of a corps
d’armee. General Grant never afterward
communicated to me on the subject at all; and I inferred
that Mr. Stanton, who was notoriously vindictive in
his prejudices, would not consent to the employment
of these high officers. General Buell, toward
the close of the war, published a bitter political
letter, aimed at General Grant, reflecting on his
general management of the war, and stated that both
Generals Canby and Sherman had offered him a subordinate
command, which he had declined because he had once
outranked us. This was not true as to me, or
Canby either, I think, for both General Canby and I
ranked him at West Point and in the old army, and he
(General Buell) was only superior to us in the date
of his commission as major-general, for a short period
in 1862. This newspaper communication, though
aimed at General Grant, reacted on himself, for it
closed his military career. General Crittenden
afterward obtained authority for service, and I offered
him a division, but he declined it for the reason,
as I understood it, that he had at one time commanded
a corps. He is now in the United States service,
commanding the Seventeenth Infantry. General
McCook obtained a command under General Canby, in
the Department of the Gulf, where he rendered good
service, and he is also in the regular service, lieutenant-colonel
Tenth Infantry.
I returned to Nashville from Cincinnati about the
25th of March, and started at once, in a special car
attached to the regular train, to inspect my command
at the front, going to Pulaski, Tennessee, where I
found General G. M. Dodge; thence to Huntsville, Alabama,
where I had left a part of my personal staff and the
records of the department during the time we had been
absent at Meridian; and there I found General McPherson,
who had arrived from Vicksburg, and had assumed command
of the Army of the Tennessee. General McPherson
accompanied me, and we proceeded by the cars to Stevenson,
Bridgeport, etc., to Chattanooga, where we spent
a day or two with General George H. Thomas, and then
continued on to Knoxville, where was General Schofield.
He returned with us to Chattanooga, stopping by the
way a few hours at Loudon, where were the headquarters