“General Thomas had wisely taken the precaution to make rude works about breast-high along his whole front, using rails and logs for the purpose. The logs and rails ran at right angles to each other, the logs keeping parallel to the proposed line of battle and lying upon the rails until the proper height was reached. The spaces between these logs were filled with rails, which served to add to their security and strength. The spade had not been used.”
—EDITORS.
16 General Bushrod Johnson was the first to enter the gap with his division and, with the coolness and judgment for which he was always distinguished, took in the situation at a glance and began the flank movement to the right. General Longstreet adopted the plan of his lieutenant, and made his other troops conform to Bushrod Johnson’s movement.—D.H.H.
17 General Adams was captured by Van Derveer’s men.—D.H.H.
18 Bragg had great respect and affection for the first lieutenant of his battery. The tones of tenderness with which he spoke of “Old Tom” are still remembered by me.—D.H.H.
19 James Burns, 39th Indiana Mounted Infantry, writes to the editors from Harper, Kansas:
“Wilder’s brigade, with Colonel T. J. Harrison’s 39th Indiana Mounted Infantry regiment, which was ordered to report to Colonel Wilder about 9 o’clock A.M. of the 20th of September, was stationed on a hill about one-third of a mile in the rear of the line of battle,—the 39th on the left of the brigade. A few minutes after 11 o’clock A.M. the brigade was ordered to advance across the valley where the ammunition train was stationed, and up the hill to the support of Captain Lilly’s battery, and to hold the hill at all hazards until the train was got out of the way. My company, ‘A,’ 39th Indiana, was in advance, and on reaching the brow of the hill Major Evans gave the commands, ‘39th Indiana on left into line’; ‘Fire at will.’ At a distance of less than fifty yards six solid lines of gray were coming with their hats down, their bayonets at a charge, and the old familiar rebel yell. Our first volley did not check their advance, but as volley after volley from our Spencer rifles followed, with scarce a second’s intermission, and regiment after regiment came on left into line on our right, and poured the same steady, deadly fire into their fast-thinning ranks, they broke and fled.
“Colonel Wilder and Colonel Harrison rode along our lines, directing that if they charged us again, no shot must be fired until the word of command was given. In a few moments those lines of gray once more emerged from the sheltering timber on the opposite side of the field, and steadily, as if on parade, they advanced to the charge till the line had reached to the point at which they broke before, when the command ‘Fire’ was given, and again they broke and fled in wild confusion. Three times more did those brave men advance at a charge, and each time were they hurled back. A lieutenant of the 17th Indiana went down with a few men under cover of the fire of the brigade, and brought in the flag of an Alabama regiment. We then received orders to move off, remount and guard the ammunition train to Chattanooga, which we did successfully.”
20 General Longstreet wrote to me in July, 1884:
“It is my opinion that Bragg thought at 3 P.M. that the battle was lost, though he did not say so positively. I asked him at that time to reënforce me with a few troops that had not been so severely engaged as mine, and to allow me to go down the Dry Valley road, so as to interpose behind Thomas and cut off his retreat to Chattanooga, at the same time pursuing the troops that I had beaten back from my front. His reply, as well as I can remember, was that he had no troops except my own that had any fight left in them, and that I should remain in the position in which I then was. After telling me this, he left me, saying, ‘General, if anything happens, communicate with me at Reed’s Bridge.’ In reading Bragg’s report, I was struck with his remark that the morning after the battle ‘he found the ever-vigilant General Liddell feeling his way to find the enemy.’ Inasmuch as every one in his army was supposed to know on the night of the battle that we had won a complete victory, it seemed to me quite ludicrous that an officer should be commended for his vigilance the next morning in looking for the enemy in his immediate presence. I know that I was then laying a plan by which we might overhaul the enemy at Chattanooga or between that point and Nashville. It did not occur to me on the night of the 20th to send Bragg word of our complete success. I thought that the loud huzzas that spread over the field just at dark were a sufficient assurance and notice to any one within five miles of us.… Rosecrans speaks particularly of his apprehension that I would move down the Dry Valley road.”
—D.H.H.
21 He belonged to Von Zinken’s regiment, of New Orleans, composed of French, Germans, and Irish. I said to him: “My poor fellow, you are badly hurt. What regiment do you belong to?” He replied: “The Fifth Confederit, and a dammed good regiment it is.” The answer, though almost ludicrous, touched me as illustrating the esprit de corps of the soldier—his pride in and his affection for his command. Colonel Von Zinken told me afterward that one of his desperately wounded Irishmen cried out to his comrades, “Charge them, boys; they have cha-ase (cheese) in their haversacks.” Poor Pat, he has fought courageously in every land in quarrels not his own.—D.H.H.
22 Major-General Walker claims that he proposed to me to make an advance movement with his whole corps, and complains that his command was disintegrated by sending it in by brigades. General Walker did propose, as he says, to fall back and align upon Cleburne, when we saw Granger’s corps approaching on our right, and I did refuse to permit this, believing that a withdrawal in full view of Granger would invite an attack upon our flank, and this might be fatal to troops more or less demoralized by the bloody repulse which they had sustained. The proposal to advance with his whole corps was never heard by me, and was, at best, impossible, as two of his five brigades had been detached, the one by Polk and the other by myself, to fill gaps in the line.—D.H.H.
23 According to the official returns the entire loss during the afternoon in Steedman’s two brigades (including 613 captured or missing) was 1787. A Federal writer says that of the eight staff-officers of Brig.-Gen. Whitaker “three were killed, three wounded, and one killed or captured.”—D.H.H.
24 In regard to the relative strength of the two armies, Colonel Archer Anderson says:
“From an examination of the original returns in the War Department, I reckon, in round numbers, the Federal infantry and artillery on the field at 59,000, and the Confederate infantry and artillery at 55,000. The Federal cavalry, about 10,000 strong, was outnumbered by the Confederates by 1000 men. Thus speak the returns. Perhaps a deduction of 5000 men from the reported strength of each army would more nearly represent the actual strength of the combatants. But in any case it is, I think, certain that Rosecrans was stronger in infantry and artillery than Bragg by at least 4000 men.”
The Federal estimate of their loss, in captured or missing, is below the mark by 1000, if the Confederate claim of the capture of 6500 prisoners is correct. The Confederates also claim to have taken 51 pieces of artillery, 15,000 stand of arms, and a large amount of ordnance stores, camp-equipage, etc.—D.H.H.
CHAPTER 12
CHATTANOOGA.
Ulysses S. Grant, General, U.S.A.
After the fall of Vicksburg I urged strongly upon the Government the propriety of a movement against Mobile. General Rosecrans had been at Murfreesboro’, Tennessee, with a large and well-equipped army from early in the year 1863, with Bragg confronting him with a force quite equal to his own at first, considering that it was on the defensive. But after the investment of Vicksburg, Bragg’s army was largely depleted to strengthen Johnston, in Mississippi, who was being reënforced to raise the siege. I frequently wrote to General Halleck suggesting that Rosecrans should move against Bragg. By so doing he would either detain the latter’s troops where they were, or lay Chattanooga open to capture. General Halleck strongly approved the suggestion, and finally wrote me that he had repeatedly ordered Rosecrans to advance, but that the latter had constantly failed t
o comply with the order,1 and at last, after having held a council of war, replied, in effect, that it was a military maxim “not to fight two decisive battles at the same time.” If true, the maxim was not applicable in this case. It would be bad to be defeated in two decisive battles fought the same day, but it would not be bad to win them. I, however, was fighting no battle, and the siege of Vicksburg had drawn from Rosecrans’s front so many of the enemy that his chances of victory were much greater than they would be if he waited until the siege was over, when these troops could be returned. Rosecrans was ordered to move against the army that was detaching troops to raise the siege. Finally, on the 24th of June, he did move, but ten days afterward Vicksburg surrendered, and the troops sent from Bragg were free to return.2 It was at this time that I recommended to the general-in-chief the movement against Mobile. I knew the peril the Army of the Cumberland was in, being depleted continually not only by ordinary casualties, but also by having to detach troops to hold its constantly extending line over which to draw supplies, while the enemy in front was as constantly being strengthened. Mobile was important to the enemy, and, in the absence of a threatening force, was guarded by little else than artillery. If threatened by land and from the water at the same time, the prize would fall easily, or troops would have to be sent to its defense. Those troops would necessarily come from Bragg.
My judgment was overruled, however, and the troops under my command were dissipated over other parts of the country where it was thought they could render the most service. Four thousand were sent to Banks, at New Orleans; five thousand to Schofield, to use against Price, in Arkansas; the Ninth Corps back to Kentucky; and finally, in August, the whole of the Thirteenth Corps to Banks. I also sent Ransom’s brigade to Natchez, to occupy that point, and to relieve Banks from guarding any part of the river above what he had guarded before the fall of Port Hudson. Ransom captured a large amount of ammunition and about five thousand beef cattle that were crossing the river going east for the rebel armies. At this time the country was full of deserters from Pemberton’s army, and it was reported that many had also left Johnston. These avowed they would never go back to fight against us again. Many whose homes were west of the river went there, and others went North to remain until they could return with security.
Soon it was discovered in Washington that Rosecrans was in trouble and required assistance. The emergency was now too immediate to allow us to give this assistance by making an attack in the rear of Bragg upon Mobile. It was, therefore, necessary to reënforce directly, and troops were sent from every available point. On the 13th of September Halleck telegraphed me to send all available forces to Memphis, and thence east along the Memphis and Charleston railroad to coöperate with Rosecrans. This instruction was repeated two days later, but I did not get even the first until the 23d of the month. As fast as transports could be provided all the troops except a portion of the Seventeenth Corps were forwarded under Sherman, whose services up to this time demonstrated his superior fitness for a separate command.3 I also moved McPherson, with most of the troops still about Vicksburg, eastward, to compel the enemy to keep back a force to meet him. Meanwhile Rosecrans had very skillfully manœuvred Bragg south of the Tennessee River, and through and beyond Chattanooga. If he had stopped and intrenched, and made himself strong there, all would have been right, and the mistake of not moving earlier partially compensated. But he pushed on, with his forces very much scattered, until Bragg’s troops from Mississippi began to join him.4 Then Bragg took the initiative. Rosecrans had to fall back in turn, and was able to get his army together at Chickamauga, some miles south-east of Chattanooga, before the main battle was brought on. The battle was fought on the 19th and 20th of September, and Rosecrans was badly defeated, with a heavy loss in artillery, and some sixteen thousand men killed, wounded, and captured. The corps under Major-General George H. Thomas stood its ground, while Rosecrans, with Crittenden and McCook, returned to Chattanooga. Thomas returned also, but later, and with his troops in good order. Bragg followed and took possession of Missionary Ridge, overlooking Chattanooga. He also occupied Lookout Mountain, west of the town, which Rosecrans had abandoned, and with it his control of the river and river road as far back as Bridgeport. The National troops were now strongly intrenched in Chattanooga Valley, with the Tennessee River behind them, the enemy occupying commanding heights to the east and west, with a strong line across the valley, from mountain to mountain, and Chattanooga Creek for a large part of the way in front of their line.
On the 29th of September Halleck telegraphed me the above results, and directed all the forces that could be spared from my department to be sent to Rosecrans, suggesting that a good commander like Sherman or McPherson should go with the troops; also that I should go in person to Nashville to superintend the movement. Long before this dispatch was received Sherman was already on his way, and McPherson also was moving east with most of the garrison of Vicksburg. I at once sent a staff-officer to Cairo, to communicate, in my name, directly with the Government, and to forward me any and all important dispatches without the delays that had attended the transmission of previous ones. On the 3d of October a dispatch was received at Cairo ordering me to move with my staff and headquarters to that city, and report from there my arrival. This dispatch reached me on the 10th. I left Vicksburg the same day, reached Columbus en route for Cairo on the 16th, and reported my arrival at once. The reply to my telegram from Cairo, announcing my arrival at that point, came on the morning of the 17th, directing me to proceed immediately to the Galt House, Louisville, Kentucky, where I would meet an officer of the War Department with my instructions. I left Cairo within an hour after the receipt of this dispatch, going by rail by the way of Indianapolis, Indiana. Just as the train I was on was starting out of the depot at Indianapolis, a messenger came running up to stop it, saying the Secretary of War was coming into the station and wanted to see me. I had never met Mr. Stanton up to that time, though we had held frequent conversations over the wires, the year before, when I was in Tennessee. Occasionally, at night, he would order the wires between the War Department and my headquarters to be connected, and we would hold a conversation for an hour or two. On this occasion the secretary was accompanied by Governor Brough, of Ohio, whom I had never met, though he and my father had been old acquaintances. Mr. Stanton dismissed the special train that had brought him to Indianapolis and accompanied me to Louisville.
Up to this time no hint had been given me of what was wanted after I left Vicksburg, except the suggestion in one of Halleck’s dispatches that I had better go to Nashville and superintend the operation of the troops sent to relieve Rosecrans. Soon after we had started, the secretary handed me two orders, saying that I might take my choice of them. The two were identical in all but one particular. Both created the Military Division of the Mississippi, giving me the command, composed of the Departments of the Ohio, the Cumberland, and the Tennessee, and all the territory from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi River, north of Banks’s command in the south-west. One order left the department commanders as they were, while the other relieved Rosecrans and assigned Thomas to his place. I accepted the latter. We reached Louisville after night, and, if I remember rightly, in a cold, drizzling rain. The Secretary of War told me afterward that he caught a cold on that occasion from which he never expected to recover.
THE ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND IN FRONT OF CHATTANOOGA. FROM A LITHOGRAPH.
The picture shows the intrenchments occupied by three divisions of Thomas’s corps. In the foreground is seen Fort Grose, manned on the left of the picture by the 24th Ohio and on the right by the 36th Indiana, guns of the First Ohio Battery being in the inclosures. Fort Negley is at the end of the line of works seen in the middle-ground, Lookout Mountain being in the distance.
—EDITORS.
A day was spent in Louisville, the secretary giving me the military news at the capital, and talking about the disappointment at the results of some of the campaigns. By the evening of the day afte
r our arrival all matters of discussion seemed exhausted, and I left the hotel to spend the evening away, both Mrs. Grant (who was with me) and myself having relations living in Louisville. In the course of the evening Mr. Stanton received a dispatch from Mr. C. A. Dana [an officer of the War Department], then in Chattanooga, informing him that unless prevented Rosecrans would retreat, and advising peremptory orders against his doing so. A retreat at that time would have been a terrible disaster. It would not only have been the loss of a most important strategic position to us, but it would have been attended with the loss of all the artillery still left with the Army of the Cumberland, and the annihilation of that army itself, either by capture or demoralization.
All supplies for Rosecrans had to be brought from Nashville. The railroad between this base and the army was in possession of the Government up to Bridgeport, the point at which the road crosses to the south side of the Tennessee River; but Bragg, holding Lookout and Raccoon mountains west of Chattanooga, commanded the railroad, the river, and the shortest and best wagon roads both south and north of the Tennessee, between Chattanooga and Bridgeport. The distance between these two places is but twenty-six miles by rail; but owing to this position of Bragg all supplies for Rosecrans had to be hauled by a circuitous route, north of the river, and over a mountainous country, increasing the distance to over sixty miles. This country afforded but little food for his animals, nearly ten thousand of which had already starved, and none were left to draw a single piece of artillery or even the ambulances to convey the sick. The men had been on half rations of hard bread for a considerable time, with but few other supplies, except beef driven from Nashville across the country. The region along the road became so exhausted of food for the cattle that by the time they reached Chattanooga they were much in the condition of the few animals left alive there, “on the lift.” Indeed, the beef was so poor that the soldiers were in the habit of saying, with a faint facetiousness, that they were living on half rations of hard bread and “beef dried on the hoof.” Nothing could be transported but food, and the troops were without sufficient shoes or other clothing suitable for the advancing season. What they had was well worn. The fuel within the Federal lines was exhausted, even to the stumps of trees. There were no teams to draw it from the opposite bank, where it was abundant. The only means for supplying fuel, for some time before my arrival, had been to cut trees from the north bank of the river, at a considerable distance up the stream, form rafts of it, and float it down with the current, effecting a landing on the south side, within our lines, by the use of paddles or poles. It would then be carried on the shoulders of the men to their camps. If a retreat had occurred at this time it is not probable that any of the army would have reached the railroad as an organized body, if followed by the enemy.
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