Nothing would have pleased Schofield better than to have had Longstreet come down to Knoxville and fight there, but the cogent reasons which had made Foster suspend active operations and devote every energy to getting his men and animals in condition for a vigorous spring campaign, had lost none of their force. Our animals had already been sent away to save their lives, and by the help of the little steamboats built at Kingston and for which General Meigs had sent engines from the North, we were beginning to receive at Knoxville some of the clothing for which our men were suffering. Grant had already ordered Thomas to be prepared to march at once to reinforce Schofield, [Footnote: _Id._, p. 359.] when he had a personal interview at Nashville with General Foster, who was on his way home. Foster so fully explained the impossibility of supplying troops much further up the valley than Knoxville, and the absolute need of building up the physical strength of man and beast after the half starvation since winter set in, that Grant yielded to the inevitable and directed Schofield to remain on the defensive till the approach of spring should give a prospect of activity which should not be destructive to the little army. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 373-375.] He ordered that the re-enlisting veterans should have their furloughs as soon as possible, and that men and animals should have all the rest they could get, preparatory for early operations in the spring. After his retreat from Knoxville, Longstreet had kept up an active correspondence with Mr. Davis, and with Lee, Johnston, and Beauregard, in reference to further plans of campaign. The ease with which Thomas could reinforce Schofield was so plain to him that he saw nothing attractive in another advance on Knoxville. The plan which seemed to attract him most was to mount his infantry on mules and make a dash through the mountains into Kentucky by way of Pound Gap. [Footnote: _Id._, pp. 652-789, 790-792.] To collect ten thousand mules and send them to him, to make a depot for rations and forage at Abingdon sufficient to support the column on its journey through the mountains, to furnish a train to carry it,--all this seemed evidently chimerical to those to whom he proposed it. [Footnote: _Id._, p. 760.] The Confederacy had all it could do to feed its existing armies where they were, and was living from hand to mouth. The thing which the Confederate government seemed most to desire was that Longstreet should effect a junction with Johnston and the two open an offensive campaign against Thomas. [Footnote: _Id._ pp. 806, 808, 810.] The evil consequences of Bragg's blunder in detaching Longstreet before the battle of Missionary Ridge became more evident every day; but how were the commands to be reunited? A long and perilous flank march must be made by both armies, with an almost certainty that Grant would concentrate first and fall upon them in succession.