These events were watched in the North with all the more anxiety because the Confederate invasion of Kentucky began just about the time of the second battle of Bull Run, and Buell arrived at Louisville within a week after the battle of Antietam while people were wondering how that victory would be followed up. Men of intelligence and influence, especially in the Western States, were loud in their complaints of Buell's want of vigour. It is remarkable that the Unionists of Kentucky, who suffered the most through his supposed faults, expressed their confidence in him; but his own soldiers did not like him, for he was a strict disciplinarian without either tact or any quality which much impressed them. Their reports to their homes in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, from which they mostly came, increased the feeling against him which was arising in those States, and his relations with the Governors of Ohio and Indiana, who were busy in sending him recruits and whose States were threatened with invasion, seem, wherever the fault may have lain, to have been unfortunate. Buell's most powerful friend had been McClellan, and by an irrational but unavoidable process of thought the real dilatoriness of McClellan became an argument for blaming Buell as well. Halleck defended him loyally, but this by now probably seemed to Lincoln the apology of one irresolute man for another. Stanton, whose efficiency in the business of the War Department gave him great weight, had become eager for the removal of Buell. Lincoln expected that as soon as Buell could cover Louisville he would take the offensive promptly. His army appears to have exceeded in numbers, though not very much, the combined forces of Bragg and Kirby Smith, and except as to cavalry it was probably as good in quality. If energetically used by Halleck some months before, the Western armies should have been strong enough to accomplish great results; and if the attempt had been made at first to raise much larger armies, it seems likely that the difficulties of training and organisation and command would have increased out of proportion to any gain. Buell remained some days at Louisville itself, receiving reinforcements which were considerable, but consisted mainly of raw recruits. While he was there orders arrived from Lincoln removing him and appointing his second in command, the Virginian Thomas, in his place. This was a wise choice; Thomas was one of the four Northern generals who won abiding distinction in the Civil War. But Thomas felt the injustice which was done to Buell, and he refused the command in a letter magnanimously defending him. The fact was that Lincoln had rescinded his orders before they were received, for he had issued them under the belief that Buell was remaining on the defensive, but learnt immediately that an offensive movement was in progress, and had no intention of changing commanders under those circumstances.