The register should be kept up, but the names of all officers who were not in the volunteer service at the close, should be stricken from it.
On the 9th of November, two days after the battle of Belmont, Major-General H.W.Halleck superseded General Fremont in command of the Department of the Missouri.

The limits of his command took in Arkansas and west Kentucky east to the Cumberland River.

From the battle of Belmont until early in February, 1862, the troops under my command did little except prepare for the long struggle which proved to be before them.
The enemy at this time occupied a line running from the Mississippi River at Columbus to Bowling Green and Mill Springs, Kentucky.

Each of these positions was strongly fortified, as were also points on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers near the Tennessee state line.

The works on the Tennessee were called Fort Heiman and Fort Henry, and that on the Cumberland was Fort Donelson.