They had endured thirty degrees below zero without a murmur, they had breasted blizzard and cyclone, they could live on anything, and they could sleep either in forest or on prairie, under the open sky.
It was such men as these, including men of his own state, and men of the Tennessee mountains, whom Johnston, who had all the qualities of a great commander, had to face.

The forces against him were greatly superior in number.

The eastern end of his line had been crushed already at Mill Spring, the extreme western end had suffered a severe blow at Fort Henry, but Jefferson Davis and the Government at Richmond expected everything of him.

And he manfully strove to do everything.
There was a mighty marching of men, some news of which came through to Dick and his comrades with Grant.

Johnston with his main army, the very flower of the western South, fell back from Bowling Green, in Kentucky, toward Nashville, the capital of Tennessee.