On the 18th of December I received orders from Washington to divide my command into four army corps, with General McClernand to command one of them and to be assigned to that part of the army which was to operate down the Mississippi.  This interfered with my plans, but probably resulted in my ultimately taking the command in person.  McClernand was at that time in Springfield, Illinois.  The order was obeyed without any delay.  Dispatches were sent to him the same day in conformity.

On the 20th General Van Dorn appeared at Holly Springs, my secondary base of supplies, captured the garrison of 1,500 men commanded by Colonel Murphy, of the 8th Wisconsin regiment, and destroyed all our munitions of war, food and forage.  The capture was a disgraceful one to the officer commanding but not to the troops under him.  At the same time Forrest got on our line of railroad between Jackson, Tennessee, and Columbus, Kentucky, doing much damage to it.  This cut me off from all communication with the north for more than a week, and it was more than two weeks before rations or forage could be issued from stores obtained in the regular way.  This demonstrated the impossibility of maintaining so long a line of road over which to draw supplies for an army moving in an enemy’s country.  I determined, therefore, to abandon my campaign into the interior with Columbus as a base, and returned to La Grange and Grand Junction destroying the road to my front and repairing the road to Memphis, making the Mississippi river the line over which to draw supplies.  Pemberton was falling back at the same time.

The moment I received the news of Van Dorn’s success I sent the cavalry at the front back to drive him from the country.  He had start enough to move north destroying the railroad in many places, and to attack several small garrisons intrenched as guards to the railroad.  All these he found warned of his coming and prepared to receive him.  Van Dorn did not succeed in capturing a single garrison except the one at Holly Springs, which was larger than all the others attacked by him put together.  Murphy was also warned of Van Dorn’s approach, but made no preparations to meet him.  He did not even notify his command.

Colonel Murphy was the officer who, two months before, had evacuated Iuka on the approach of the enemy.  General Rosecrans denounced him for the act and desired to have him tried and punished.  I sustained the colonel at the time because his command was a small one compared with that of the enemy—­not one-tenth as large—­and I thought he had done well to get away without falling into their hands.  His leaving large stores to fall into Price’s possession I looked upon as an oversight and excused it on the ground of inexperience in military matters.  He should, however, have destroyed them.  This last surrender demonstrated to my mind that Rosecrans’ judgment of Murphy’s conduct at Iuka was correct.  The surrender of Holly Springs was most reprehensible and showed either the disloyalty of Colonel Murphy to the cause which he professed to serve, or gross cowardice.