The department and army commanders had to maintain strong garrisons in their respective departments, and also to guard their respective lines of supply.  I therefore, in my mind, aimed to prepare out of these three armies, by the 1st of May, 1864, a compact army for active operations in Georgia, of about the following numbers: 

Army of the Cumberland................ 50,000
Army of the Tennessee................. 35,000
Army of the Ohio ..................... 15,000

Total ............................... 100,000

and, to make these troops as mobile as possible, I made the strictest possible orders in relation to wagons and all species of incumbrances and impedimenta whatever.  Each officer and soldier was required to carry on his horse or person food and clothing enough for five days.  To each regiment was allowed but one wagon and one ambulance, and to the officers of each company one pack horse or mule.

Each division and brigade was provided a fair proportion of wagons for a supply train, and these were limited in their loads to carry food, ammunition, and clothing.  Tents were forbidden to all save the sick and wounded, and one tent only was allowed to each headquarters for use as an office.  These orders were not absolutely enforced, though in person I set the example, and did not have a tent, nor did any officer about me have one; but we had wall tent-flies, without poles, and no tent-furniture of any kind.  We usually spread our flies over saplings, or on fence-rails or posts improvised on the spot.  Most of the general officers, except Thomas, followed my example strictly; but he had a regular headquarters-camp.  I frequently called his attention to the orders on this subject, rather jestingly than seriously.  He would break out against his officers for having such luxuries, but, needing a tent himself, and being good-natured and slow to act, he never enforced my orders perfectly.  In addition to his regular wagon-train, he had a big wagon which could be converted into an office, and this we used to call “Thomas’s circus.”  Several times during the campaign I found quartermasters hid away in some comfortable nook to the rear, with tents and mess-fixtures which were the envy of the passing soldiers; and I frequently broke them up, and distributed the tents to the surgeons of brigades.  Yet my orders actually reduced the transportation, so that I doubt if any army ever went forth to battle with fewer impedimenta, and where the regular and necessary supplies of food, ammunition, and clothing, were issued, as called for, so regularly and so well.

My personal staff was then composed of Captain J. C. McCoy, aide-de-camp; Captain L. M. Dayton, aide-de-camp; Captain J. C. Audenried, aide-de-camp; Brigadier-General J. D. Webster, chief of staff; Major R. M. Sawyer, assistant adjutant-general; Captain Montgomery Rochester, assistant adjutant-general.  These last three were left at Nashville in charge of the office, and were empowered to give orders in my name, communication being generally kept up by telegraph.