Meanwhile at Knoxville Burnside was closely watching the evidences of Longstreet's purposes and eagerly listening for news from Chattanooga. On the 1st of December wagon trains began to move eastward from the besiegers' camp, and on the 3d and 4th more of them, so that it became probable that Longstreet was about to raise the siege. In the night of the 3d Captain Audenried, Sherman's aide-de-camp, came into Knoxville from the south, having made a long circuit with a small body of cavalry, from Sherman's camp, which on the night of the 2d was forty miles from the city by the direct road. Colonel Long, commanding Sherman's cavalry, had selected part of his best mounted men for the expedition, and Audenried had accompanied him. The good news of Sherman's approach was thus made certain, and it was evident that Longstreet's information was earlier than Burnside's. The Confederate camps were evacuated on the night of the 4th, and on the 5th Burnside, sending a detachment to follow up Longstreet's retreat toward the east, sent one of his staff with an escort in the other direction to meet Sherman. The messenger from Burnside met the head of the relieving column at Marysville, a day's march for infantry. Sherman halted his little army, and wrote Burnside that he felt disposed to stop, "for a stern chase is a long one," since Longstreet had retreated. He rode in to Knoxville the next day and consulted with Burnside. He was evidently dubious of any advantage from a pursuit of Longstreet, and Burnside's disposition was to avoid urging any comrade to undertake an unpleasant task for his sake. He therefore cordially assisted Sherman in solving his doubts in favor of taking back all his troops except Granger's Fourth Corps, and wrote a letter of warm thanks for the prompt march to his relief, adding his opinion that the Fourth Corps would make him strong enough to meet Longstreet, and that it was advisable for Sherman to rejoin Grant with the rest. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. ii. p. 36.] This was accordingly done, and Sherman was free to give his attention to a winter campaign toward the Gulf, from which he hoped important results. Granger did not relish the prospect of a protracted absence from the Army of the Cumberland, and protested in vigorous and long dispatches to Thomas, to Grant, to Burnside, to Sherman, and later to Foster, [Footnote: _Id_., pt. iii. pp. 358, 365, 391-393; Sherman's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 368.] but with no effect, except that Grant was displeased with his original reluctance to march to Burnside's relief as well as with these protests. The result showed itself in the spring, when Granger was relieved from the command of the corps, which was conferred upon Howard.