This evil was completely remedied by the appointment to the chief command in the West of General Johnson, and the prompt and decided measures which he instituted. General Johnson's whole life had been one of the most thorough military training, and no officer of his years in the old army of the United States had seen more service; but more than that, he was a soldier by instinct, and Nature had intended him for military command.
He felt the full importance of careful preparation, and the establishment by order and system in every branch and department of the service. No martinet of the schools was ever more alive to the necessity of rigid method and exact discipline, for he knew that without their inauguration and strict observance, it would be impossible to even partially discharge the duties of his vast commission. But he also saw clearly the vital necessity of maintaining in tact the spirit which animated the men of his army, and which had summoned them into the field. He knew that to impair the ardor which had induced them to become soldiers was to destroy their morale; that to attempt to make them machines would result in making them worthless.
Although the troops at his disposal seriously needed instruction and more perfect organization, he did not waste precious moments in seeking to impart them then. He did not permit the high spirit of his gallant army to sink into lethargy, nor the interest which the people felt in the conduct of military affairs to abate by remaining inactive, and in a position which would reduce him, under all circumstances, to the defensive. A concentration of his forces any where upon the Tennessee border would not only have placed him at great strategic disadvantage, but would have been instantly accepted by the soldiery and the people as a signal of his intention to await the pleasure and movements of his adversary. Almost immediately after his arrival at Nashville, the troops which had collected at Camp Boone, the rendezvous of the Kentucky regiments, and the Tennessee troops which were available, were pushed into Kentucky. Kentucky's neutrality, for a time recognized provisionally, and so far as a discreet silence upon the subject amounted to recognition by the Federal Government, had already been exploded. The Government of the United States, having made the necessary preparations, was not disposed to abandon a line of invasion which led right to the vitals of the Confederacy, and promised a successful reduction of the rebellion in at least three of the seceded States, because of the partially rebellious attitude assumed by Kentucky.