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in the early part of February tendered him the command of the department of Southwestern Virginia, and he accepted it. The announcement of the fact brought gloom to the Kentucky brigade, and the parting was touching.
The night before he left they called in a body to take leave of him, and besought him to secure their transfer to his department.
When he went to Richmond on his way to take command, he made the application, and afterward repeated it urgently; but when the matter was referred to Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, who had succeeded General Bragg in the command, that officer disapproved the transfer, saying in compliment to the brigade, which ever endeared him to it, that its place could not be supplied.
Thus the year 1864 started off with a general shakeup in the army at Dalton, and the several officers went to their new fields of service, not again to be united.
Leaving the Kentucky brigade in quarters at Dalton for a season of rest and recreation, a brief record will be made of General Breckinridge's after service and that of the Kentuckians who came under his command, as little account has ever been made of it within the reach of his admiring countrymen.
The department to which he had been assigned was one of great territorial dimensions, and of an altogether inadequate force.
It extended from the Alleghany mountains as far west in East Tennessee as was held by the Confederate arms, and northward the same.
It had been the graveyard of Confederate generals as far as their reputations were concerned, owing to the fact that, with a front of nearly three hundred miles open to invasions of the enemy by routes impossible to guard, whenever it was invaded blame fell upon the commanding general and his prestige was destroyed.
It came near being the ruin of General Lee, while Floyd, Loring and a number of others were in turn retired and their future usefulness destroyed.
In the latter part of February General Breckinridge assumed command of the department with headquarters
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
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