Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/362

330 day we moved on toward Dix River, a tributary of the Kentucky, and discovered that the whole rebel army had crossed it. Buell, being uncertain whether the enemy would retreat further or would avail himself of the strong positions which the country between the two rivers afforded and await attack, had ordered his whole army to advance on the same day from a line extending from Harrodsburg to Danville. On the 13th, our movement was continued in a southeasterly direction upon the last-mentioned place. There we ascertained definitely that Bragg was really in full retreat towards the Cumberland River. Even Buell now had to believe this, and he decided upon an energetic pursuit in force. At midnight General Wood's division marched from Danville and came up with and engaged the enemy's rear-guard of cavalry and artillery in the morning at Stanford. But it became evident during the day that the enemy's object was only to obstruct our advance, which he did by destroying bridges and blocking the road by felled trees. I rode with McCook's cavalry brigade in advance of Gilbert's corps through Lancaster to Crab Orchard, but we did not collide again with the rebels. At the last-named point, the several roads followed by the army converged into one, of a very rugged and difficult character, so that the army could have followed the enemy only in one column twenty miles long, which would have been useless and absurd. McCook's and Gilbert's corps were therefore halted on the 15th.

All the reports from the pursuing column confirmed the general impression that Bragg and Kirby Smith were making for Cumberland Gap and would not stop short of East Tennessee. This meant the end of the Kentucky campaign for Buell's army. In view of this, and the destitute condition in which the loss of my travelling-bag had left me, I resolved to return to Louisville, and set out on the return journey on the afternoon of the 15th, bound for Bardstown, the nearest railroad station to which trains were known to be running. My route was via Stanford,