wing. Pemberton was fortified at the Tallahatchie, but occupied Holly
Springs and Grand Junction on the Mississippi Central railroad. On the
8th we occupied Grand Junction and La Grange, throwing a considerable
force seven or eight miles south, along the line of the railroad. The
road from Bolivar forward was repaired and put in running order as the
troops advanced.

Up to this time it had been regarded as an axiom in war that large
bodies of troops must operate from a base of supplies which they always
covered and guarded in all forward movements. There was delay therefore
in repairing the road back, and in gathering and forwarding supplies to
the front.

By my orders, and in accordance with previous instructions from
Washington, all the forage within reach was collected under the
supervision of the chief quartermaster and the provisions under the
chief commissary, receipts being given when there was any one to take
them; the supplies in any event to be accounted for as government
stores. The stock was bountiful, but still it gave me no idea of the
possibility of supplying a moving column in an enemy's country from the
country itself.

It was at this point, probably, where the first idea of a "Freedman's
Bureau" took its origin. Orders of the government prohibited the
expulsion of the negroes from the protection of the army, when they came
in voluntarily. Humanity forbade allowing them to starve. With such an
army of them, of all ages and both sexes, as had congregated about Grand
Junction, amounting to many thousands, it was impossible to advance.
There was no special authority for feeding them unless they were
employed as teamsters, cooks and pioneers with the army; but only