It seems to me that a real or
feigned attack on Columbus from up-river at the same time would either
prevent this, or compensate for it by throwing Columbus into our hands."
Similar questions also went to Buell, and their replies showed that no
concert, arrangement, or plans existed, and that Halleck was not ready
to cooeperate. The correspondence started by the President's inquiry for
the first time clearly brought out an estimate of the Confederate
strength opposed to a southward movement in the West. Since the
Confederate invasion of Kentucky on September 4, the rebels had so
strongly fortified Columbus on the Mississippi River that it came to be
called the "Gibraltar of the West," and now had a garrison of twenty
thousand to hold it; while General Buckner was supposed to have a force
of forty thousand at Bowling Green on the railroad between Louisville
and Nashville. For more than a month Buell and Halleck had been aware
that a joint river and land expedition southward up the Tennessee or the
Cumberland River, which would outflank both positions and cause their
evacuation, was practicable with but little opposition. Yet neither
Buell nor Halleck had exchanged a word about it, or made the slightest
preparation to begin it; each being busy in his own field, and with his
own plans.
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