THE REMOVAL OF ROSECRANS.
Preparing to defend Chattanooga--Effect on the army of the day of
disaster and glory--Mr. Dana suggests Grant or Thomas as Rosecrans's
successor--Portrait of Thomas--The dignity and loyalty of his
character illustrated--The army reorganized--It is threatened with
starvation--An estimate of Rosecrans--He is relieved of the command
of the Army of the Cumberland.
All the news we could get the next day of the enemy's movements seemed
to show that the Confederate forces were concentrating on Chattanooga.
Accordingly, Rosecrans gave orders for all our troops to gather in the
town at once and prepare for the attack which would probably take place
within a day or two. By midnight the army was in Chattanooga. The troops
were in wonderful spirits, considering their excessive fatigues and
heavy losses, and the next morning went to work with energy on the
fortifications. All the morning of the 22d the enemy were approaching,
resisted by our advance parties, and by the middle of the afternoon the
artillery firing was so near that it seemed certain that the battle
would be fought before dark. No attack was made that day, however, nor
the next, and by the morning of the 24th the Herculean labors of the
army had so fortified the place that it was certain that it could be
taken only by a regular siege or by a turning movement. The strength of
our forces was about forty-five thousand effective men, and we had ten
days' full rations on hand. Chattanooga could hold out, but it was
apparent that no offensive operations were possible until
re-enforcements came. These we knew had been hurried toward us as soon
as the news of the disaster of the 20th reached Washington. Burnside was
coming from Knoxville, we supposed, Hooker had been ordered from
Washington by rail, Sherman from Vicksburg by steamer, and some of
Hurlbut's troops from Memphis.
The enemy by the 24th were massed in Chattanooga Valley, and held
Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain. The summit of Lookout Mountain,
almost the key to Chattanooga, was not given up by Rosecrans until the
morning of the 24th; then he ordered the withdrawal of the brigade which
held the heights, and the destruction of the wagon road which winds
along its side at about one third of its height and connects the valleys
of Chattanooga and Lookout. Both Granger and Garfield earnestly
protested against this order, contending that the mountain and the road
could be held by not more than seven regiments against the whole power
of the enemy. They were obviously right, but Rosecrans was sometimes as
obstinate and inaccessible to reason as at others he was irresolute,
vacillating, and inconclusive, and he pettishly rejected all their
arguments. The mountain was given up.
As soon as we felt reasonably sure that Chattanooga could hold out until
re-enforcements came, the disaster of the 20th of September became the
absorbing topic of conversation in the Army of the Cumberland. At
headquarters, in camp, in the street, on the fortifications, officers
and soldiers and citizens wrangled over the reasons for the loss of the
day. By the end of the first week after the disaster a serious
fermentation reigned in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Army Corps, and,
indeed, throughout the whole army, growing out of events connected with
the battle.
There was at once a manifest disposition to hold McCook and Crittenden,
the commanders of the two corps, responsible, because they had left the
field of battle amid the rout of the right wing and made their way to
Chattanooga.[D] It was not generally understood or appreciated at that
time that, because of Thomas's repeated calls for aid and Rosecrans's
consequent alarm for his left, Crittenden had been stripped of all his
troops and had no infantry whatever left to command, and that McCook's
lines also had been reduced to a fragment by similar orders from
Rosecrans and by fighting. A strong opposition to both sprang up, which
my telegrams to Mr. Stanton immediately after the battle fully reflect.
The generals of division and of brigade felt the situation deeply, and
said that they could no longer serve under such superiors, and that, if
this was required of them, they must resign. This feeling was universal
among them, including men like Major-Generals Palmer and Sheridan and
Brigadier-Generals Wood, Johnson, and Hazen.
The feeling of these officers did not seem in the least to partake of a
mutinous or disorderly character; it was rather conscientious
unwillingness to risk their men and the country's cause in hands which
they thought to be unsafe. No formal representation of this
unwillingness was made to Rosecrans, but he was made aware of the state
of things by private conversations with several of the parties. The
defects of his character complicated the difficulty. He abounded in
friendliness and approbativeness, and was greatly lacking in firmness
and steadiness of will. In short, he was a temporizing man; he dreaded
so heavy an alternative as was now presented, and hated to break with
McCook and Crittenden.
Besides, there was a more serious obstacle to Rosecrans's acting
decisively in the fact that if Crittenden and McCook had gone to
Chattanooga, with the sound of artillery in their ears, from that
glorious field where Thomas and Granger were saving their army and their
country's honor, he had gone to Chattanooga also. It might be said in
his excuse that, under the circumstances of the sudden rout, it was
perfectly proper for the commanding general to go to the rear to prepare
the next line of defense. Still, Rosecrans felt that that excuse could
not entirely clear him either in his own eyes or in those of the army.
In fact, it was perfectly plain that, while the subordinate commanders
would not resign if he was retained in the chief command, as I believe
they certainly would have done if McCook and Crittenden had not been
relieved, their respect for Rosecrans as a general had received an
irreparable blow.
The dissatisfaction with Rosecrans seemed to me to put the army into a
very dangerous condition, and, in writing to Mr. Stanton on September
27th, I said that if it was decided to change the chief commander I
would suggest that some Western commander of high rank and great
prestige, like Grant, would be preferable as Rosecrans's successor to
one who had hitherto commanded in the East alone.
The army, however, had its own candidate for Rosecrans's post. General
Thomas had risen to the highest point in their esteem, as he had in that
of every one who witnessed his conduct on that unfortunate and glorious
day, and I saw that, should there be a change in the chief command,
there was no other man whose appointment would be so welcome. I
earnestly recommended Mr. Stanton that in event of a change in the chief
command Thomas's merits be considered. He was certainly an officer of
the very highest qualities, soldierly and personally. He was a man of
the greatest dignity of character. He had more the character of George
Washington than any other man I ever knew. At the same time he was a
delightful man to be with; there was no artificial dignity about Thomas.
He was a West Point graduate, and very well educated. He was very set
in his opinions, yet he was not impatient with anybody--a noble
character.
In reply to my recommendation of Thomas, I received a telegram from the
Secretary of War, saying: "I wish you to go directly to see General
Thomas, and say to him that his services, his abilities, his character,
his unselfishness, have always been most cordially appreciated by me,
and that it is not my fault that he has not long since had command of an
independent army."
Accordingly, I went at once over to General Thomas's headquarters. I
remember that I got there just after they had finished dinner; the table
was not cleared off, but there was nobody in the dining room. When
General Thomas came in, I read to him the telegram from the Secretary.
He was too much affected by it to reply immediately. After a moment he
said:
"Mr. Dana, I wish you would say to the Secretary of War that I am
greatly affected by this expression of his confidence; that I should
have long since liked to have had an independent command, but what I
should have desired would have been the command of an army that I could
myself have organized, disciplined, distributed, and combined. I wish
you would add also that I would not like to take the command of an army
where I should be exposed to the imputation of having intrigued or of
having exercised any effort to supplant my previous commander."
This was on October 4th. Four days later General Thomas sent a
confidential friend to me, saying rumors had come to him that he was to
be put in Rosecrans's place; that, while he would gladly accept any
other command to which Mr. Stanton should see fit to assign him, he
could not consent to become the successor of General Rosecrans. He would
not do anything to give countenance to the suspicion that he had
intrigued against his commander's interest. He declared that he had
perfect confidence in the fidelity and capacity of General Rosecrans.
The first change in the Army of the Cumberland was an order from
Washington consolidating the Twentieth and Twenty-first Corps. The news
reached Chattanooga on October 5th in a Nashville newspaper, and, not
having been previously promulgated, it caused a sensation. Crittenden
was much excited, and said that, as the Government no longer required
his services, he would resign; at any rate, he would not hibernate like
others, drawing pay and doing no work. McCook took it easily. The
consolidation of the two corps was generally well received, and, as it
was to be followed by a general reorganization of the army, it seemed as
if the most happy consequences would be produced. The only serious
difficulty which followed the change was that the men in the
consolidated corps were troubled by letters from home, showing that
their friends regarded a consolidation as a token of disgrace and
punishment.
Although the reorganization of the army was going on, there was no real
change in our situation, and by the middle of October it began to look
as if we were in a helpless and precarious position. No re-enforcements
had yet reached us, the enemy was growing stronger every day, and, worse
still, we were threatened with starvation. Rosecrans's error in
abandoning Lookout Mountain to the enemy on September 24th was now
apparent. Our supplies came by rail from Nashville to Bridgeport; but
the enemy controlled the south shore of the Tennessee between us and
Bridgeport, and thus prevented our rebuilding the railroad from
Bridgeport to Chattanooga; with their shore batteries they stopped the
use of our steamboats. They even made the road on the north shore
impassable, the sharpshooters on the south bank being able to pick off
our men on the north. The forage and supplies which we had drawn from
the country within our reach were now exhausted, and we were dependent
upon what could be got to us over the roads north of the river. These
were not only disturbed by the enemy, but were so bad in places that the
mud was up to the horses' bellies. The animals themselves had become too
weak to haul the empty train up the mountain, while many had died of
starvation. On October 15th the troops were on half rations, and
officers as they went about where the men were working on the
fortifications frequently heard the cry of "Crackers!"
In the midst of these difficulties General Rosecrans seemed to be
insensible to the impending danger; he dawdled with trifles in a manner
which scarcely can be imagined. With plenty of zealous and energetic
officers ready to do whatever needed to be done, precious time was lost
because our dazed and mazy commander could not perceive the catastrophe
that was close upon us, nor fix his mind upon the means of preventing
it. I never saw anything which seemed so lamentable and hopeless. Our
animals were starving, the men had starvation before them, and the enemy
was bound soon to make desperate efforts to dislodge us. Yet the
commanding general devoted that part of the time which was not employed
in pleasant gossip to the composition of a long report to prove that the
Government was to blame for his failure on the 20th.
While few persons exhibited more estimable social qualities, I have
never seen a public man possessing talent with less administrative
power, less clearness and steadiness in difficulty, and greater
practical incapacity than General Rosecrans. He had inventive fertility
and knowledge, but he had no strength of will and no concentration of
purpose. His mind scattered; there was no system in the use of his busy
days and restless nights, no courage against individuals in his
composition, and, with great love of command, he was a feeble commander.
He was conscientious and honest, just as he was imperious and
disputatious; always with a stray vein of caprice and an overweening
passion for the approbation of his personal friends and the public
outside.
Although the army had been reorganized as a result of the consolidation
of the Twentieth and Twenty-first Corps, it was still inefficient and
its discipline defective. The former condition proceeded from the fact
that General Rosecrans insisted on directing personally every
department, and kept every one waiting and uncertain till he himself
could directly supervise every operation. The latter proceeded from his
utter lack of firmness, his passion for universal applause, and his
incapacity to hurt any man's feelings by just severity.
My opinion of Rosecrans and my fears that the army would soon be driven
from Chattanooga by starvation, if not by the Confederates, I had
reiterated in my letters to Mr. Stanton. On the morning of October 19th
I received a dispatch from Mr. Stanton, sent from Washington on October
16th, asking me to meet him that day at the Gait House in Louisville. I
wired him that, unless he ordered to the contrary, Rosecrans would
retreat at once from Chattanooga, and then I started for Louisville. It
was a hard trip by horseback over Walden's Ridge and through Jasper to
Bridgeport, and the roads were not altogether safe. Ten days before
this, in riding along the edge of a bank near the river shore, the earth
had given way under my horse's hind feet, and he and I had been tumbled
together down a bank, about fourteen feet high; we rolled over each
other in the sand at the bottom. I got off with no worse injury than a
bruise of my left shoulder and a slight crack on the back of my head
from the horse's hind foot, which made the blood run a little. The roads
over Walden Ridge and along the river were even worse now than when I
got my tumble, and, besides, they were filled with wagons trying to get
supplies to Chattanooga. It took at that time ten days for wagon teams
to go from Stevenson, where we had a depot, to Chattanooga. Though
subsistence stores were so nearly exhausted, the wagons were compelled
to throw overboard portions of their precious cargo in order to get
through. The returning trains were blockaded. On the 17th of October
five hundred teams were halted between the mountain and the river
without forage for the animals, and unable to move in any direction;
the whole road was strewn with dead animals.
The railway from Bridgeport to Nashville was not much more comfortable
or safer than the road. Early in the month I had gone to Nashville on
business, and had come back in a tremendous storm in a train of eighteen
cars crowded with soldiers, and was twenty-six hours on the road instead
of ten. On the present trip, however, I got along very well until within
about eight miles from Nashville, when our train narrowly escaped
destruction. A tie had been inserted in a cattle guard to throw the
train down an embankment, but it had been calculated for a train going
south, so that ours simply broke it off. From what we learned afterward,
we thought it was intended for a train on which it was supposed General
Grant was going to Bridgeport.
My train was bound through to Louisville. Indeed, I think there was no
one with me except the train hands and the engineer. We reached
Nashville about ten o'clock on the night of October 20th, and there were
halted. Directly there came in an officer--I think it was
Lieutenant-Colonel Bowers, of General Grant's staff--who said:
"General Grant wants to see you."
This was the first that I knew Grant was in Tennessee. I got out of my
train and went over to his. I hadn't seen him since we parted at
Vicksburg.
"I am going to interfere with your journey, Mr. Dana," he said as soon
as I came in. "I have got the Secretary's permission to take you back
with me to Chattanooga. I want you to dismiss your train and get in
mine; we will give you comfortable quarters."
"General," I said, "did you ask the Secretary to let me go back with
you?"
"I did," he said; "I wanted to have you."
So, of course, I went. On the way down he told me that he had been
appointed to the command of the "Military Division of the Mississippi,"
with permission to leave Rosecrans in command of the Department of the
Cumberland or to assign Thomas in his place. He had done the latter, he
said, and had telegraphed Thomas to take charge of the army the night
after Stanton, at Louisville, had received my dispatch of the 19th
saying Rosecrans would retreat from Chattanooga unless ordered to
remain. Rosecrans was assigned to the Department of the Missouri, with
headquarters at St. Louis.
FOOTNOTE:
[D] The feeling of the army toward McCook and Crittenden was afterward
greatly modified. A court of inquiry examined their cases, and in
February, 1864, gave its final finding and opinion. McCook it relieved
entirely from responsibility for the reverse of September 20th,
declaring that the small force at his disposal was inadequate to defend,
against greatly superior numbers, the long line he had taken under
instructions, and adding that, after the line was broken, he had done
everything he could to rally and hold his troops, giving the necessary
orders to his subordinates. General Crittenden's conduct, the court
likewise declared, showed no cause for censure, and he was in no way
responsible for the disaster to the right wing.