Still another railroad connects Corinth
with Jackson, in west Tennessee. If we obtained possession of Corinth
the enemy would have no railroad for the transportation of armies or
supplies until that running east from Vicksburg was reached. It was the
great strategic position at the West between the Tennessee and the
Mississippi rivers and between Nashville and Vicksburg.
I at once put all the troops at Savannah in motion for Pittsburg
landing, knowing that the enemy was fortifying at Corinth and collecting
an army there under Johnston. It was my expectation to march against
that army as soon as Buell, who had been ordered to reinforce me with
the Army of the Ohio, should arrive; and the west bank of the river was
the place to start from. Pittsburg is only about twenty miles from
Corinth, and Hamburg landing, four miles further up the river, is a mile
or two nearer. I had not been in command long before I selected Hamburg
as the place to put the Army of the Ohio when it arrived. The roads
from Pittsburg and Hamburg to Corinth converge some eight miles out.
This disposition of the troops would have given additional roads to
march over when the advance commenced, within supporting distance of
each other.
Before I arrived at Savannah, Sherman, who had joined the Army of the
Tennessee and been placed in command of a division, had made an
expedition on steamers convoyed by gunboats to the neighborhood of
Eastport, thirty miles south, for the purpose of destroying the railroad
east of Corinth.
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