CHAPTER XXIX

AFFAIRS IN DISTRICT OF OHIO--PLOT TO LIBERATE PRISONERS AT JOHNSON'S ISLAND

Administrative duties--Major McLean adjutant-general--His loyalty questioned--Ordered away--Succeeded by Captain Anderson--Robert Anderson's family--Vallandigham canvass--Bounty-jumping--Action of U. S. Courts--of the local Probate Court--Efforts to provoke collision--Interview with the sheriff--Letter to Governor Tod--Shooting soldiers in Dayton--The October election--Great majority against Vallandigham--The soldier vote--Wish for field service--Kinglake's Crimean War--Its lessons--Confederate plots in Canada--Attempt on military prison at Johnson's Island--Assembling militia there--Fortifying Sandusky Bay--Inspection of the prison--Condition and treatment of the prisoners.

CHAPTER XXX

A WINTER RIDE ON THE CUMBERLAND MOUNTAINS

Ordered to East Tennessee--Preparation for a long ride--A small party of officers--Rendezvous at Lexington, Ky.--Changes in my staff--The escort--A small train--A gay cavalcade--The blue-grass country--War-time roads--Valley of the Rockcastle--Quarters for the night--London--Choice of routes-Longstreet in the way--A turn southward--Williamsburg--Meeting Burnside--Fording the Cumberland--Pine Mountain--A hard pull--Teamsters' chorus--Big Creek Gap--First view of East Tennessee--Jacksboro--A forty-mile trot--Escape from unwelcome duty--In command of Twenty-third Corps--The army-supply problem--Siege bread--Starved beef--Burnside's dinner to Sherman.

CHAPTER XXXI

WINTER BIVOUACS IN EAST TENNESSEE

Blain's Cross-roads--Hanson's headquarters--A hearty welcome--Establishing field quarters--Tents and houses--A good quartermaster--Headquarters' business--Soldiers' camps--Want of clothing and shoes--The rations--Running the country mills--Condition of horses and mules--Visit to Opdycke's camp--A Christmas dinner--Veteran enlistments--Patriotic spirit--Detachment at Strawberry Plains--Concentration of corps there--Camp on a knoll--A night scene--Climate of the valley--Affair at Mossy Creek--New Year's blizzard--Pitiful condition of the troops--Patience and courage--Zero weather.