March the 26th my headquarters were, as stated, at Culpeper, and the
work of preparing for an early campaign commenced.
CHAPTER XLVII.
THE MILITARY SITUATION--PLANS FOR THE CAMPAIGN--SHERIDAN ASSIGNED TO
COMMAND OF THE CAVALRY--FLANK MOVEMENTS--FORREST AT FORT PILLOW--GENERAL
BANKS'S EXPEDITION--COLONEL MOSBY--AN INCIDENT OF THE WILDERNESS
CAMPAIGN.
When I assumed command of all the armies the situation was about this:
the Mississippi River was guarded from St. Louis to its mouth; the line
of the Arkansas was held, thus giving us all the North-west north of
that river. A few points in Louisiana not remote from the river were
held by the Federal troops, as was also the mouth of the Rio Grande.
East of the Mississippi we held substantially all north of the Memphis
and Charleston Railroad as far east as Chattanooga, thence along the
line of the Tennessee and Holston rivers, taking in nearly all of the
State of Tennessee. West Virginia was in our hands; and that part of
old Virginia north of the Rapidan and east of the Blue Ridge we also
held. On the sea-coast we had Fortress Monroe and Norfolk in Virginia;
Plymouth, Washington and New Berne in North Carolina; Beaufort, Folly
and Morris islands, Hilton Head, Port Royal and Fort Pulaski in South
Carolina and Georgia; Fernandina, St.
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