On the 2d of September I was ordered to send more reinforcements to Buell.

Jackson and Bolivar were yet threatened, but I sent the reinforcements.

On the 4th I received direct orders to send Granger's division also to Louisville, Kentucky.
General Buell had left Corinth about the 10th of June to march upon Chattanooga; Bragg, who had superseded Beauregard in command, sent one division from Tupelo on the 27th of June for the same place.

This gave Buell about seventeen days' start.

If he had not been required to repair the railroad as he advanced, the march could have been made in eighteen days at the outside, and Chattanooga must have been reached by the National forces before the rebels could have possibly got there.