as happy and jolly a party as one need wish for in a rough ride of a couple of hundred miles over the mountains. Our escort turned out to be only twenty horsemen instead of a full troop, but these were enough for protection against mere marauders, and we had to take the chance of meeting organized bodies of the enemy. Four army wagons were furnished us. One of these was loaded with oats for our horses, and carried the personal baggage of the cavalry troop. Another was loaded with ordinary army rations. A third was devoted to mess supplies of the officers of the party, and as we were going into a country wasted by war and almost famine-stricken, we each tried to carry with us a small stock of choice provisions which might eke out a little comfort to the mess. The fourth wagon carried our personal baggage. Captain Day had carefully selected strong and serviceable horses for the teams, and the wagons were minutely inspected to see that they were fit for the mountain work in a wilderness where wheelwrights could not be found. It was our purpose to get both forage and provisions on the road if we could buy them, and to save the stock in our wagons for a time of necessity or to carry as much as possible into Knoxville. I had telegraphed to Burnside as soon as I reached Cincinnati, formally reporting myself as under his orders for duty in the field by permission of the Secretary of War. I expressed my regret to hear of his leaving the command, and urged my assignment to duty before he laid down his authority. No answer to my dispatch was received, and the fact was that full communication with Burnside by the Cumberland Gap route was not opened till the 9th of December, so that my letter was among the correspondence received by Burnside the day he turned over the command to Foster. Another cause of uneasiness to me was the change of department boundaries made in the order assigning General Foster to command. The States north of the Ohio were separated from the department, and I was apprehensive that other changes might occur which would make me fall between two stools. That there was danger of just such disappointments turned out to be very true. My anxious determination to get forward to Knoxville with the least possible delay was justified, and I had reason to congratulate myself on acting promptly upon it.