When General Foster informed the War Department that the opening of his old wound made it necessary to relieve him of command in East Tennessee, the President was in some perplexity in regard to several prominent officers. He was disposed to find some adequate employment for Rosecrans, who was still backed by a very strong political coterie in Washington. He was convinced that injustice had been done Burnside, and was thinking of sending him with the Ninth Corps, largely increased in numbers, to his old field of successful work on the Carolina coast. The opposition of influential politicians of Kansas and Missouri to Schofield, whose confirmation as major-general was still obstructed in the Senate, he felt as a personal hostility to himself. Grant was also desirous of suitable assignments to command for McPherson, W. F. Smith, and Sheridan. The almost certain passage of the bill to give a higher grade in the army, and the assumption that Grant would be promoted to it, gave the opportunity to make a satisfactory arrangement of all these cases. Burnside's return to active work and the removal to the East of the Ninth Corps were determined on, with General Parke's return, at his own desire, to the position of Burnside's chief of staff. McPherson was to take the Army of the Tennessee when Sherman should be promoted to the command of the Military Division of the Mississippi. Smith and Sheridan were to have high assignments in the Eastern army. Rosecrans was sent to Missouri, and Schofield, to his great content, was appointed to command the Army of the Ohio. These changes were gradually shaped in the correspondence of Grant with army headquarters during the fall and winter. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. pp. 122, 277, 458, 529, 571; vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 79, 80, 182, 202, 209, 229, 230, 251, 336; also a curious letter of Hooker to Stranton, _id_., pp. 467-469. See also Schofield's "Forty-six Years in the Army," pp. 108-110. I have treated these changes more in detail in chapter vii. of Force's "General Sherman" (Great Commanders' series). See preface of the work last named.] They were followed by others in the corps divisions and brigades, so that the organization of all the Western armies took permanent form before Grant was called to Washington to assume his new rank at the beginning of March.