of the situation. As in Virginia I should be operating in a field

with which I was wholly unfamiliar, and among so many who were

strangers, it seemed to me that it would be advisable to have, as a

chief staff-officer, one who had had service in the East, if an

available man could be found. In weighing all these considerations

in my mind, I fixed upon Captain James W. Forsyth, of the Eighteenth

Infantry, then in the regular brigade at Chattanooga--a dear friend

of mine, who had served in the Army of the Potomac, in the Peninsula

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