1863.] 253 [Coppee. 



partment of the Ohio, with his headquarters at Cincinnati. While 

 there he carefully surveyed the approaches to the town, and built 

 redoubts and projected defences at the prominent points, which doubt- 

 less serv^ed a good purpose when, at a later day, Cincinnati was 

 threatened by an overwhelming rebel force. 



When the Departments of the Ohio and the Cumberland were 

 afterward united. General Mitchel was ordered to report to General 

 Buell ; and he was then placed in command of a camp of rendezvous, 

 where he was actively receiving, organizing, and forwarding troops 

 for three weeks. At the expiration of this brief period, he was ap- 

 pointed to the command of the Third Division of the Army of the 

 Ohio, then stationed at Elizabethtown, Kentucky. If we particu- 

 larize in dates and positions, it is that the reader may trace the rapid 

 and energetic movements of General Mitchel the more intelligibly. 



On the 9th of February, 1862, he was at Bacon Creek; on the 

 13th he started for Bowling Green, until then the strongest point on 

 the strategic line of the rebel army. Forced marches, in themselves 

 a wonderful feat with new troops, brought him to Bowling Green on 

 the 16th. On the 22d, he started with General Buell for Nash- 

 ville ; and it is worth recording that that city was surrendered to 

 Colonel Kennett, of the Fourth Ohio Calvary, for General Mitchel, 

 on Sunday evening, February 23d. The surrender is publicly be- 

 lieved to have been made to General Nelson, but that officer did not 

 arrive with his division to occupy the place until three days after it 

 had capitulated to General Mitchel. He had now entered upon 

 those brilliant independent movements which had escited the admi- 

 ration of the whole country, and which, could he have received 

 timely and adequate reinforcements, would have redeemed the entire 

 region in which they were made. Early in March, he was at Mur- 

 freesboro', where, putting his railroad experience in practice, he im- 

 provised twelve hundred feet of bridges. Leaving Murfreesboro' on 

 the 6th of April, he marched to Shelbyville ; on the 10th, he was at 

 Fayetteville ; and on the 11th, at Huntsville, in Alabama. Here, 

 again, the railway engineer supplied valuable generalship. Seizing 

 the rolling stock, he immediately sent out two railway expeditions, 

 east and west, the one to Decatur, and the other to Stevenson, on 

 the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. The expedition to Steven- 

 son he conducted in person. Both places were captured, and North- 

 ern Alabama was in Federal possession, one hundred and twenty 

 miles of the railroad being in running condition, and guarded by 

 Mitchel's troops. 



