Distrust of Sherman increased at the War Department. Whether or not he was really considered insane, the Government hesitated to intrust to him the command of the increased forces it was presently to place in Kentucky. Accordingly, on November 12th, Sherman was relieved from command and was sent to the Missouri, to drill and organize volunteers. His successor in command at Louisville was General Don Carlos Buell. The extraordinary extent to which the rumors of his mental unsoundness were carried, may be appreciated after perusal of the following passage, which occurred in an editorial in _The Cincinnati Commercial_--a paper supposed to be friendly to Sherman--early in December, 1861: "The painful intelligence reaches us in such form that we are not at liberty to discredit it, that General W. T. Sherman, late Commander of the Department of the Cumberland is insane! It appears that he was at times, when commanding in Kentucky, stark mad. We learn that he at one time telegraphed to the War Department three times in one day for permission to evacuate Kentucky and retreat into Indiana. He also, on several occasions, frightened the leading Union men of Louisville almost out of their wits by the most astounding representations of the overwhelming force of Buckner, and the assertion that Louisville could not be defended. The retreat from Cumberland Gap was one of his mad freaks. When relieved from the command in Kentucky, he was sent to Missouri and placed at the head of a brigade at Sedalia, where the shocking fact that he was a madman was developed by orders that his subordinates knew to be preposterous and refused to obey. He has, of course, been relieved altogether from command. The harsh criticisms which have been lavished upon this gentleman, provoked by his strange conduct, will now give way to feelings of the deepest sympathy for him in his great calamity. It seems providential that the country has not to mourn the loss of an army through the loss of the mind of a General into whose hands were committed the vast responsibilities of the command in Kentucky."