Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 08.djvu/421

Rh to bring to Corinth from eight to ten thousand men under General Hardee, while the remainder of his army was put in position at Burns' station and at luka, on the Memphis and Charleston railroad.

Soon after his arrival at Corinth, as I understood at the time, General Johnston desired to turn over the direct command of the united armies to you and to confine his own functions to those of a department commander, with his headquarters separated from the forces in operation, alleging as his reason for so doing the highly patriotic and unselfish view of affairs, that such a course would be best for the success of the cause, insomuch as he apprehended that he had in no slight measure lost the confidence of the people, and possibly of the troops, in consequence of recent events in Middle Tennessee, while you had the confidence of the people as well as of the army, and therefore, in all likelihood, could handle the latter with better effect or greater results than he.

Declining the offer, you urged him to remain at the head of the army, now concentrated and in good heart, while pledging your cordial support as his second in command. A day or two later, you drew up a plan for the reorganization of the Confederate army, which you exhibited and discussed in detail with me before submitting it to General Johnston. That plan having been accepted without modification, I drew up the general order which was published to the army at Corinth. Under that order, as you will recollect, the forces were arranged into three corps, respectively under Major-Generals Polk, Bragg and Hardee, leaving the cavalry and certain troops along the line of the Memphis and Charleston railroad unattached to corps.

You were announced as second in command. Major-General Bragg was nominally appointed chief of the general staff, a position borrowed from continental European armies, although there was no such office provided by law for in the Confederate military organization, which, however, was not regarded as material at the time, as General Bragg was not to be detached or at all diverted from the command of his corps; and in fact his assignment to the position was in order simply to enable him, at some possible exigent moment on the field, to give orders in the name of General Johnston, a power which both the Commander-in-Chief and yourself desired that General Bragg should have in certain exigencies. At the same time I was named Adjutant-General of the united forces.

Under this organization you then devoted yourself to mould and