Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 4.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[76] on this occasion, which was to be decisive, Bragg had to be supplied with a more important complement. Six months before, Longstreet's corps was detached for some time from the Army of Northern Virginia; the battle of Chancellorsville had been won in his absence. Mr. Davis asked General Lee again to dispense with Longstreet, so as to send him to fight Rosecrans. Laxity in the pursuit of the enemy after the battle of Gettysburg and the inactivity of Meade on the Rapidan justified the apparent boldness underlying this request. The bad condition of the Southern railways and the interruption of the direct Richmond line via Knoxville rendered the transportation of Longstreet's army corps a difficult performance. It was prepared in the greatest secrecy: the reader has seen that at the very time when this operation was taking place Halleck believed there was a contrary movement of the enemy's forces going on from the westward to the eastward. Meade had no suspicion. The artillery and wagons, which would have encumbered the trains, were left behind in Virginia.

Longstreet's fifteen thousand soldiers were bringing to Bragg a reinforcement more valuable than would have been twice that number of men picked up here and there in the recruiting-stations of the Confederacy. Indeed, the Army of Northern Virginia was then superior to all the others on account of its activity and ardor, the experience of its officers, and the confidence with which they inspired their men. The premature death of Albert Sidney Johnston, and the jealousy which had long kept his illustrious namesake [Joe Johnston] away from active command, had deprived the gallant soldiers of the West of the only two chiefs who could have trained them after the manner of Lee. Longstreet's corps, surrounded with all the prestige of victory, was going to give them some valuable examples. The reorganization of Pickett's forces, decimated at Gettysburg, had reduced this corps to two divisions. Hood's division set out first, toward the 4th of September; Longstreet, with McLaws' division, followed it six or seven days later.

The arrival of these troops would secure to Bragg some sixty thousand combatants. This was a greater number of men than Rosecrans could place in line, and almost equal to the number

Lee had under his orders at Gettysburg. However, as their trip