Claire Morton, would all be promoted entirely regardless of what the fortunes of war might have in store for them. This I did without the slightest feeling of unkindness or jealousy towards these officers, but simply on account of my belief that the Commanding General was such a narrow-minded bigot in regard to Catholicism, that it was impossible for him not to allow considerations of this kind to control his estimate of men. We shall see how nearly correct I was in this estimate further on. At the time this campaign was entered upon the National Forces had not been divided into Army Corps and numbered. Each Army commander divided his army as to him seemed best. Rosecrans divided his into three grand divisions called the Right, Center, and Left, and each of these into three ordinary divisions of four brigades each, the Right, Center and Left commanded respectively by Generals A. McD. McCook, George H. Thomas and Thos. L. Crittenden. At the time of this advance and for a long time previous thereto, I was commanding a brigade in Gen. Thos. J. Wood's division of the left wing. The advance movement all along the line finally commenced about the 26th day of December, 1862. The first day Palmer's division of the left wing had the advance and on the evening of that day, had reached the vicinity of Lavergne, having had some pretty sharp skirmishing in so doing. The next day by rotation Wood's division had the advance. It was not the place of my brigade to lead the division that day, but I was specially requested to take the advance, however, as the progress made the day before had not been satisfactory. I consented to do so upon condition that the cavalry, which had been in advance the day before should be retired to the rear of my brigade ready to be brought into use should we succeed in routing the enemy, and should the topography of the country admit of the successful use of cavalry. I had seen so many disastrous results ensue from the use of squadrons of cavalry in advance of an army under such circumstances as we were advancing, that I did not want to run any such risks in addition to the ordinary and inevitable risks of such advances against an army in the field. The cavalry necessarily has to retire before any effective work can be done, and usually comes back pell mell with a lot of riderless horses, and creates infinitely more confusion, consternation, and even danger to the advancing army, than anything the enemy would be likely to do at that stage of the operations.