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THE CAMPAIGN FOR CHATTANOOGA.

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a duty to the living and to the dead, I avail myself of the opportunity here afforded to perpetuate testimony concerning the strategy and grand tactics of wonderful

that FUGITIVE NEGROES.

campaign of Chattanooga in which the battle of Chickamauga was an inevitable incident. In the performance of this peculiar duty, it is a relief to know that, thanks to Congress and to Colonel R. N. Scott, the publication of reports, correspondence, orders, and dispatches relating to these events will soon be made in a forthcoming volume of the "Records of Union and Confederate Armies during the Rebellion," which will enable an interested public to verify the accuracy of what I shall state.*

On October 30th, 1862, at Bowling Green, Kentucky, I assumed command of the troops which had been under the able and conscientious Major-General D. C. Buell. They consisted of the Fourteenth Army Corps and such reënforcements as had joined it previous to the battle of Perryville, Kentucky, which drove the Confederates advancing under Bragg, back into Tennessee. There were, in all, 10 divisions of infantry, about 34 batteries of artillery, and some 18 regiments of gallant but untrained cavalry.

The Army of the Cumberland was molded out of these by organizing the infantry and artillery into grand divisions: the right under Major-General A. McD. McCook; the center under Major-General George H. Thomas; and the left under Major-General Thomas L. Crittenden. The cavalry was under General D. S. Stanley, an experienced chief. There was a pioneer brigade, formed by details from the infantry, under the chief engineer, and inspector general's and topographical staffs for corps, division, and brigade service, detailed from officers of the line. Through interchanges, the muskets of each brigade were reduced to a single caliber; and battle-flags were prescribed to distinguish corps, divisions, and brigades on the battle-field and march.

With this army, under instructions from *Colonel Robert N. Scott died on March 5th of pneumonia. He had been ill only a week. In 1878 he was assigned to the duty of compiling the records of the war, which he performed with signal ability and

Major-General Halleck, General-in-Chief, I was to "Go to East Tennessee, driving the rebels out of Middle Tennessee."

It was November. The autumn rains were near at hand. East Tennessee was 150 miles away, over the Cumberland Mountains. It had been stripped of army supplies by the Confederates. We had not wagons enough to haul supplies to subsist our troops fifty miles from their depots, as had just been demonstrated in their pursuit of Bragg, after Perryville. Hence our route to East Tennessee must be by the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, or within less than fifty miles right or left of it. The shortest and best line lies through that gap in the mountains where all the drainage of East Tennessee breaks through and flows westward from Chattanooga, forty miles by river, into Middle Tennessee at Bridgeport. [See map, page 133].

In the first week of November the Army of the Cumberland, therefore, proceeded to Nashville, and as soon as it was prepared to do so, Dec. 26th, began its movement for Chattanooga, distant 151 miles. Meanwhile, the enemy under Bragg concentrated at Murfreesboro', 32 miles from Nashville. The opposing armies met on the bloody field of Stone's River, December 30th, and after a contest of four days, in which twenty per cent. of its brave officers and men were killed and wounded, the Army of the Cumberland took Murfreesboro'.

The Confederates retired to Duck River, 32 miles south, and established a formidable intrenched camp across the roads leading southward at Shelbyville. Another intrenched camp was constructed by Bragg 18 miles south of Shelbyville at Tullahoma, where the McMinnville branch intersects the main Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad.

The winter rains made the country roads impassable for large military operations. Our adversary's cavalry outnumbered ours nearly three to one. It occupied the corn regions of Duck and Elk rivers. Ours had to live in regions exhausted of supplies, to watch and guard the line of the railroad which supplied 32 miles to Nashville, and the Louisville and Nashville Railway for 185 miles farther northward to Louisville. We lost many of our animals for want of long forage. Meanimpartiality. His loss will be keenly felt by students of war history who, like ourselves, have had the benefit of his scholarly counsel and unfailing courtesy.EDITOR.

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while we hardened our cavalry, drilled our infantry, fortified Nashville and Murfreesboro' for secondary depots, and arranged our plans for the coming campaign upon the opening of the roads, which were expected to be good by the 1st of May, 1863.

General Burnside, commanding the Department of the Ohio, including Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky (with headquarters at Cincinnati), sent his next in command, Major-General George L. Hartsuff, to arrange for his forces to coöperate with ours for the relief of East Tennessee, which, though largely Union in sentiment, was now occupied by the enemy under General Buckner.

I explained to Hartsuff my plan, the details of which I gave to no other. It was briefly: First. We must follow the line of the Nashville and Chattanooga Railway.

Second. We must surprise and manœuvre Bragg out of his intrenched camps by moving over routes east of him to seize the line of the Nashville and Chattanooga Railway in his rear; beat him if he fights, and follow and damage him as best we can, until we see him across the Tennessee.

Third. We must deceive him as to the point of our crossing the Tennessee, and securely establish ourselves on the south side.

Fourth. We must then manœuvre him out of Chattanooga, get between him and that point, and fight him, if possible, on ground of our own choosing, and if not, upon such ground as we can.

Fifth. Burnside must follow and guard the left flank of our movement, especially when we get into the mountains. His entrance into East Tennessee will lead Bragg's attention to Chattanooga and northward, while we cross below that point.

Sixth. Since our forces in rear of Vicksburg would be endangered by General Joseph E. Johnston, if he should have enough troops, we must not drive Bragg out of Middle Tennessee until it shall be too late for his command to reënforce Johnston's.

Bragg's army is now, apparently, holding this army in check. It is the most important service he can render to his cause. The Confederate authorities know it. They will not order, nor will Bragg venture to send away any substantial detachments. In fact, he is now holding us here by his nose, which he has inserted between our teeth for that purpose. We shall keep our teeth closed on his nose by our attitude, until we are assured that Vicksburg is within three weeks of its fall.

General Hartsuff reported this to Burnside, and advised me of their assent to the plan and to concurrent action.

The news that Vicksburg could not hold

out over two or three weeks having reached us, we began our movements to dislodge Bragg from his intrenched camp on the 24th of June, 1863. It rained for seventeen consecutive days. The roads were so bad that it required four days for Crittenden's corps to march seventeen miles. Yet, on the 4th of July, we had possession of both the enemy's intrenched camps, and by the 7th, Bragg's army was in full retreat over the Cumberland Mountains into Sequatchie valley, whence he proceeded to Chattanooga, leaving us in full possession of Middle Tennessee and of the damaged. Nashville and Chattanooga Railway, with my headquarters at Winchester, fifty miles from our starting-point, Murfreesboro'. This movement was accomplished in fifteen days, and with a loss of only 586 killed and wounded.

From Winchester by railroad to Chattanooga is about sixty-nine miles. By wagon roads it is much greater. To pass over this distance, greater than from the Rappahannock to Richmond, Virginia, with intervening obstacles far more formidable, was our greatest work. In front of us were the Cumberland Mountains. Beyond them was the broad Tennessee River, from 400 to 900 yards wide. On the north side of it, beyond the Cumberland Mountains, lay Sequatchie valley, 3 or 4 miles wide and 60 miles long. East of that, Waldron's Ridge, the eastern half of the Southern Appalachian range, cut from the Cumberlands by the Sequatchie. At the eastern base of this ridge flows the Tennessee above Chattanooga, from 400 to 600 yards wide. On the south of the Tennessee tower the cliffs of Sand Mountain, 600 or 700 feet high. Beyond that broad, flat, wooded top is Trenton valley, 40 or 50 miles long, ascending southerly to the top of the plateau; and east of it the long frowning cliffs of Lookout Mountain, a thousand feet above this valley, stretch northward to the gap at Chattanooga with not a single road of ascent for 26 miles, and not another until Valley Head, 40 miles southward from Chattanooga. The task before us was:

First. To convince General Bragg, a wary and experienced officer, that we would cross the Tennessee at some point far above Chattanooga. This required time and serious movements.

Second. Meanwhile, without attracting his attention, to repair the Nashville and Chattanooga Railway to Bridgeport on the Tennessee.

Third. To subsist our troops and accumulate twenty days' rations at Stevenson, without allowing him to get the faintest intimation of our intentions and doings.

Fourth. To construct a large pontoon bridge train, bring it and the pioneer brigade for

ward by rail to the vicinity of Stevenson, wholly concealed from the enemy's knowledge, and have the men trained to lay and take up bridging.

Fifth. Our movement must be delayed until the new corn is fit for horse-feed; because when we cross the river and go into the mountains, our trains must carry twenty days' rations and ammunition enough for two great battles. We have not trains to carry anything beyond this, and hence feed for our animals must be obtained from the coming corn crop of the country into which we are going, or our campaign will be a failure.

Sixth. When we cross the Tennessee, we must so move as to endanger Bragg's communications by rail and oblige him, for their protection, to fall back far enough to give us time and space to concentrate between him and Chattanooga and, if possible, to choose our own battle-ground; for doubtless he will fight us with all the force he can assemble.

How all this was done we have not space to tell. Nor can we relate how it came to pass that the Army of the Cumberland had to proceed on its perilous mission alone, unaided, unassisted, either by our Army of the Tennessee, unemployed since the surrender of Vicksburg, or by the activity of the Army of the Potomac, which might have kept Lee from sending Longstreet to fight us; or by the Department of the Gulf, which, instead of threatening the enemy's Gulf coast to keep troops from going to Bragg, by a useless expedition to Texas, had given bonds, so to speak, not to molest them; or by Burnside's command, which was so far away to the north of us that, in the hour of need, with forty thousand men of all arms, he could do nothing to help us.

I only repeat that we were ordered forward alone, regardless alike of the counsels of commanders, the clamors of the press, the principles of military art and science, and the interests of our country. Of all this the corps commanders of the Army of the Cumberland and myself were well aware. They knew that the Secretary of War, without reason or justice, was implacably hostile to me. They knew more. They knew that those great loyal governors, Curtin of Pennsylvania, Andrew of Massachusetts, and Yates of Illinois, offered seven regiments of two years' veterans, who were willing to reënlist on condition that they should go as mounted infantry to the Army of the Cumberland; that General Lovell H. Rousseau bore a letter to Secretary Stanton, explaining how very important would be the services of such a body of men in guarding the long and exposed line of our communications, soon to be lengthened by our advance to Chattanooga; that this line must be guarded; that

every such mounted man in that move would give us three infantry men at the front. They knew that when the Secretary had read my letter, he rudely said to General Rousseau: “I would rather you would come to ask the command of the Army of the Cumberland, than to ask reënforcements for General Rosecrans. He shall not have another d―d man.”

On the 4th of August, General Halleck telegraphed me:

"Your forces must move forward without further de

lay. You will daily report the movement of each corps till you cross the Tennessee."

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On the 6th, after full consideration and consultation with my corps commanders, I replied:

"My arrangements for beginning a continuous moveMonday next. . . . It is necessary to have our means ment will be completed, and the execution begun, by of crossing the river completed and our supplies provided to cross sixty miles of mountain, and sustain ourselves during the operations of crossing and fighting, before we move. To obey your order literally would be to put our troops at once into the mountains on narrow and difficult roads destitute of pasture and forage and short of water, where they would not be able to tainly cause ultimate delay and probably disaster. If, manœuvre as exigencies may demand, and would certherefore, the movement which I propose cannot be regarded as obedience to your order, I respectfully request a modification of it, or to be relieved from the

command."

The War Department did not think it prudent to relieve me, and therefore gave consent in terms sufficient to convict it of reckless ignorance, or worse.

But we were soldiers. We moved to our work with every energy bent on insuring its success. On the 10th of August our movement began. On the 14th all our corps were crossing the Cumberlands. It required six or seven days. The movement appeared as if directed toward Knoxville, but it was really to concentrate near Bridgeport and Stevenson. Crittenden crossed the Cumberlands into Sequatchie valley and made a bivouac many miles long; sent Van Cleve's division with our left wing cavalry to Pikeville; ordered two infantry brigades to cross Waldron's Ridge by roads some miles apart, and to bivouac in long lines on its eastern edge, in sight of observers from the opposite side of the river, who would take them for strong advances of heavy columns of troops of all arms. This appearance was confirmed by the boldness of our cavalry and mounted infantry, which descended into the valley of the Tennessee and drove everything across to the enemy's side of the river. The other corps were concealed in the forests north and west of Stevenson.

The pontoon bridge train came down from Nashville by rail on the 24th of August, and the pioneers took it away out of observation,

practiced laying and taking up pontoon bridges until the 29th, when they laid a bridge across the Tennessee at Caperton's, ten miles below Bridgeport, in four and a half hours. It was 1254 feet long, and the work was done at the rate of 4.6 feet per minute.

Meanwhile, to prepare for sustaining our army at Chattanooga, I contracted with great railway bridge-building firms to rebuild the railway bridge at Bridgeport, over 2700 feet long, in four weeks, and the Running Water Bridge, three spans, 171 feet each, to be done within two weeks thereafter; and ordered Captain Edwards, Assistant Quartermaster, to have constructed, with all dispatch, five flatbottomed stern-wheel steamboats of light draft, to run on the Tennessee between Bridgeport and Chattanooga.

Our first bridge was ready, August 29th, and the Twentieth Corps was ordered across it to Valley Head, the south end of Trenton valley, forty miles south of Chattanooga. Thence a road leads down the eastern slopes of Lookout, by Alpine, into Broomtown valley, whence there are roads toward the Northern Georgia railway line and to Rome. This heavy corps of all arms, so far south of Bragg's position at Chattanooga, made him uneasy. But when Thomas, after crossing, moved with his corps up Trenton valley in the same direction, with all his train, Bragg became still more anxious. Then came Crittenden following Thomas with merely an unostentatious column in observation on the direct road to Chattanooga. This movement portended mischief and it was strong enough to do plenty of it. As a prudent commander, Bragg could not afford to leave us forty miles south of his position, to get quietly down and concentrate between him and Atlanta.

Bragg was reluctant to leave his stronghold Chattanooga, and yet he yielded to his apprehensions. On the 8th he slowly retired southward, giving out rumors that he would go back to Rome or to Atlanta. On Sept. 9th Crittenden's leading division entered Chattanooga. On the afternoon of the same day our cavalry and infantry, from the north side of the river, crossed over into town. The cavalry moved out to see if the enemy had gone. He was beyond Rossville and behind Missionary Ridge, but not far away. To keep up Bragg's apprehensions, McCook was ordered, without exposing his command, to appear advancing. On the 12th Thomas crossed over Lookout, up Johnson's Pass and down Cooper's, putting his command in snug defensive position at its foot. Crittenden had moved his whole corps into Chattanooga over the road at the north end of Lookout, but was ordered not to push out into danger. On the 10th the story of

Bragg's retreat to Atlanta was found to be false, and, behind our cavalry and mounted infantry, Crittenden's infantry moved cautiously out.

By the 12th, I found that the enemy was concentrating behind Pigeon Mountain near Lafayette. When Crittenden's reconnaissance in force, of the 12th and 13th, showed the rear of Bragg's retiring columns near the Chickamauga, I instantly ordered him to move westward within supporting distance of Thomas as speedily and secretly as possible. At the same time orders were dispatched to McCook to join Thomas at the foot of Cooper's Gap with the utmost celerity.*

Our fate now depended, first upon prompt concentration, and next, on our choosing our own battle-ground, where our flanks would be protected and where we could have full use of our artillery. Everything indicated that the enemy must soon attack us. Bragg issued his order for it, dated September 16th, 1863, in which he says to his command, "You have been amply reënforced." Yes! The Confederate authorities had wisely given Bragg every man they thought it possible to spare, from Virginia, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Even the prisoners paroled at Vicksburg contributed to strengthen him.

Our command received none from our authorities, who had abundant force at their disposition. About the 10th of September, aroused by fear of consequences, General Halleck began telegraphing orders for reënforcements, but we were involved in the mountains and beyond reach, and it was entirely too late for any useful results; but it was a confession that support ought to have been ordered at the proper time, and might serve for ulterior operations after our fate was decided.

At last, on the 18th, McCook's corps came within reach of the enemy, who was then moving through the gaps in the Pigeon Mountain to attack us. Over the tree-tops we saw clouds of dust moving toward our left. Bragg wanted to get between us and Chattanooga. We had no time to lose.

The whole Twentieth Corps came down the mountain, and Thomas, with three of his divisions, was ordered to move north-eastward through the forests by lines of fires, until his command was placed across the Reed's Bridge road and the more westwardly roads leading to Chattanooga via Rossville. Crittenden and McCook were to follow when the enemy's plan developed.

Eight o'clock on the morning of September 19th found Thomas and his wearied men in

*For additional maps and pictures relating to the battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga, see The CENTURY MAGAZINE for April, 1887.-EDITOR.

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position. Before 9 the fighting began. Crittenden, with Palmer and Van Cleve, moved on the Lafayette road toward Thomas's right. The enemy soon abandoned his attempts on our left, and concentrated toward our center. Johnson's division was ordered from McCook to Thomas; Van Cleve was driven, and Davis's division gave ground. General Negley was sent to Van Cleve's position at 5 P. M., and Sheridan earlier to help Davis. The fight raged. The enemy went back and the day closed. The corps commanders came to my headquarters. They said they had fought superior numbers. They were cool, experienced commanders; they had been in many bloody battles; their opinions had great weight. I saw that the morrow was likely to be more bloody and decisive than that day. I determined the new line, so that there should be the least possible moving of the tired troops, and that it should be short enough to give us seven brigades in reserve. All but one had been in action that day. Thomas must hold the left to the last extremity. If beaten, he must retire on Rossville and Chattanooga. He must send his trains there at once. He had the four divisions of his own corps (the Fourteenth), Johnson's from the Twentieth and Palmer's from the Twenty-first Corps. Granger, with three brigades of the Reserve Corps, was in rear of his left at Rossville. This was all of our whole army on the field, save ten brigades. But the defense of our left was the defense of our army and of Chattanooga. On the 20th, shortVOL. XXXIV.-19.

Lookout M Tennessee R.,

ly after daylight, I examined Thomas's whole line, and at 6 o'clock he wrote that he would like to have his right division (Negley's) to place on his extreme left. I ordered General Crittenden to send General Wood to replace Negley in the line. At 9 o'clock I found Wood in line of battle half a mile in rear of Negley. He said that he had understood that his order was to support Negley, not to relieve him, and proceeded to do what should have been done at least a half hour before. Meanwhile the battle had begun on Thomas's left. It moved toward the right. Heavier and heavier rolled the musketry and thundered the cannon. Captain Willard came from Thomas and asked for Negley. He had been waiting to be relieved, but now, at last, he went filing out of the woods by his left. Van Cleve was ordered farther to the north-east; McCook had had the most repeated and emphatic orders to keep his troops closing to the left.

At 11 o'clock, Major Kellogg came from Thomas, who wished to know if he could have Brannan. I replied: "Yes; tell him to dispose of Brannan, who has only one brigade in line, and to hold his position, and we will reënforce him, if need be, with all the right"; and said to Major Bond, of my staff, "If Brannan goes out, Wood must fill his place. Write him that the commanding general directs him to close to the left on Reynolds and support him."

Major Kellogg went to Brannan and gave him the order to move his command toward the left.

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