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CHATTANOOGA
AND
CHICKAMAUGA.
REPRINT OF
GEN. H. V. BOYNTON'S LETTERS
TO THE
Cincinnati Commercial Gazette,
AUGUST, 1888.
Second Edition, with Corrections.
WASHINGTON, D. C.:
GEO. R. GRAY, PRINTER.
1891.
PREFACE.
_Comrades of the Society of the Army of the Cumberland:_
When General H. V. Boynton's letters recently appeared in the Cincinnati
_Commercial Gazette_, so vividly portraying the achievements and heroism
of the Army of the Cumberland in its campaign for the possession of
Chattanooga, including the inevitable incident thereto, the battle of
Chickamauga, I thought how agreeable it would be for each member of the
society to have a copy for perusal at our approaching reunion on the
twenty-fifth anniversary of Chickamauga.
Accordingly I asked General Boynton's permission to print these letters
in pamphlet form, as advance sheets of any volume in which he may
determine to put them with other matter. To this he most cheerfully
assented in the following letter:
WASHINGTON, _Sept._ 1, 1888.
MY DEAR GENERAL: You are welcome to the Chickamauga letters for
any use you choose to make of them. While the salient features
of both days' battle are easily understood, the details of
movements by brigades are in many cases intricate. For this
reason various errors may have been made in the text. If those
who observe them will take the trouble to correct them before
the public, they would thus assist in establishing the correct
history of a battle in which the Army of the Cumberland should
take great pride.
Very truly yours,
H. V. BOYNTON.
General W. S. Rosecrans.
With this explanation, the letters are given in the order of their
respective dates.
W. S. ROSECRANS.
WASHINGTON, _August 3_. [Special.]--In two preliminary letters about
Chickamauga the attempt was made to describe the field as it appears
to-day, and to present some of the scenes of the battle which came
rushing back over the plains of memory with a power suggestive of the
departed legions that once clothed these farms, forests, and ridges with
the terrible magnificence of battle.
In a sense, to write of Chickamauga is to try to excite interest in a
subject which far too many regard as worn; but to the veterans who
fought there it will never be a threadbare story. For that generation
which has been born and has come to manhood since Chattanooga was won by
the Union arms, there is no campaign which can be studied with greater
profit, or which will more richly repay the reader. History has not yet
done justice to Chickamauga, but its verdict is sure. Many of the
misconceptions of the days following the battle still exist in the
popular mind. It may be years before they are cleared away; but
eventually the Chickamauga campaign will stand in the history of our war
as unequaled in its strategy by any other movement of the contest, and
as unsurpassed, and probably not equaled, for the stubbornness and
deadliness which marked the splendid fighting of Unionist and rebel
alike; and, furthermore, it will stand as a substantial Union victory.
Just in proportion as the credit due is awarded to those who planned and
executed the campaign will well-merited condemnation be meted out to
those at Washington who insisted upon forcing the movement without
regard to proper and vital preparation, who withheld re-enforcements,
and who, in spite of public and private warnings which it was criminal
not to heed, made rebel concentrations against Rosecrans possible from
in front of Washington itself, and from Charleston, Mobile, and
Mississippi.
It will be the purpose of a few letters to go over some of the
well-known ground of this campaign with a view of enforcing the ideas
expressed in general terms above, and attempting to present a clear
account of this most involved, and still seriously misunderstood battle.
The strategy--matchless in our war--which compelled Bragg to abandon
Chattanooga; the life and death struggle for concentrating the Union
army when Rosecrans, against the protests of Washington authorities that
it could not be true, found his widely separated corps confronted with
re-enforcements from every part of the Confederacy; and, lastly, the
great battle in the Chickamauga forests for the possession of
Chattanooga, are each most fruitful and interesting themes. The present
letter will relate to the first-named subject, the strategy of the
Chickamauga campaign.
Marching from Murfreesboro on the 23d of June, 1863, General Rosecrans
had advanced against Bragg, who was strongly fortified, and whose lines,
besides, occupied gaps and ranges of great natural strength. By
brilliant strategy, with the loss of only 586 killed and wounded, and
thirteen captured or missing, the Army of the Cumberland, with its nine
divisions and twenty brigades, operating through sixteen days of
continuous rain, maneuvered Bragg, with his seven divisions and
twenty-three brigades, out of his natural and artificial strongholds,
and forced him across the Tennessee. Up to that time there had been no
strategic campaign to equal this, and it was soon to be far surpassed,
except in the one element of loss, by the campaign to follow it. So
brilliant had been the conception and the execution that all the corps
commanders, headed by General Thomas, hastened to call on General
Rosecrans and offer the warmest congratulations.
At the close of the Tullahoma campaign Bragg occupied Chattanooga and
the mountain passes above and below it. Rosecrans's army lay along the
western base of the Cumberland Mountains, its right above Winchester and
its left at McMinnville. Here General Rosecrans at once began the most
vigorous preparations for another campaign for the occupation of
Chattanooga. Because the necessities of the case compelled secrecy as
one of the main elements of success, there was soon at Washington a
manifestation of unreasoning impatience over what was criticized as the
inaction of the Union commander; but those who were on the ground know
well the unceasing activity and energy with which the work progressed of
accumulating sufficient supplies of food, material, and ammunition,
preparing the means for crossing the Tennessee and obtaining the
necessary knowledge of the mountain passes, roads, and trails by which
the army must move. Rosecrans's supplies reached him over a badly
equipped line of worn railroad, a hundred and thirteen miles in length,
and, as can be readily understood, when the daily wants of a great army
preparing for extended movement and battle are considered, the matter of
accumulating a surplus of supplies was not the task of a day or a week.
With every effort the railroad was not repaired until July 25, and the
forward movement began on the 14th of August.
[Illustration]
A glance at the map will disclose the great natural obstacles which lay
between General Rosecrans and Chattanooga. As his army faced toward the
latter point, the Cumberland Mountains, with a general elevation of
2,200 feet, rose before it. The escarpment was everywhere precipitous,
and destitute of every means of approach except narrow mountain roads
and trails, with the one exception that a short railroad ran from Cowan
to Tracy City, on the summit of the range. To the eastward this range
dropped by like precipitous and difficult slopes into the valley of the
Sequatchee River. Beyond that stream rose the equally sharp cliffs of
Walden's Ridge, with a general elevation of 1,300 feet. This fell off
along the eastern and southern edge of the plateau into the valley of
the Tennessee, and overlooked it from the mouth of the Sequatchee River
to a point far above Chattanooga. It was fifty miles as the crow flies
from the lines of Rosecrans's army across this continuous mountain
region to the valley of the Tennessee. This river was broad and deep,
and presented in itself the most serious natural obstacle which the
Union army had encountered since it left the Ohio River. It was 2,700
feet wide at Bridgeport, and 1,254 feet at Caperton, the points where
the bridges were subsequently thrown.
On the left bank of the river, the stronghold of Chattanooga lying
behind the river, and the great ranges to the westward between
Rosecrans's position and his own, might well seem to Bragg impregnable,
in fact almost unassailable. First, toward the west, came the Lookout
range, rising abruptly from the river to the height of 2,200 feet, and
stretching southwestwardly far into Georgia and Alabama. Its western
precipices looked down into the narrow valley of Lookout Creek. Beyond
the latter rose the equally precipitous cliffs of the Raccoon Mountains,
the latter having the same general elevation as the Lookout range.
The gorge of the Tennessee where it breaks through these mountain ranges
is so narrow and so thoroughly commanded from the heights on both sides
as to render it impracticable to so move an army as to attack it from
the front or river side.
With these giant obstacles to the progress of his columns, most serious
even if they had been within the Union lines, but almost insuperable
when found in an enemy's territory, and while he was bending every
energy to complete preparations for carrying out a brilliant plan of his
own for overcoming them, General Rosecrans was astonished at receiving
on August 4, only ten days after his railroad had been repaired to the
Tennessee River, a dispatch from Halleck saying: "Your forces must move
forward without delay. You will daily report the movement of each corps
till you cross the Tennessee River."
To a commander who was building boats, opening mountain roads, rushing
the accumulation of stores, getting out material for four thousand feet
of bridges, preparing to leave his base carrying provisions for
twenty-five days, and ammunition for two battles, and crossing three
mountain ranges and a deep and broad river, in an enemy's country, and
in the face of an army, this dispatch was not only astounding, but
discouraging and exasperating to the last degree.
It had become a habit at Washington to sneer at the slowness of General
Rosecrans, as it was later to denounce General Thomas in similar terms
at Nashville. There was no more reason or justice in the one case than
in the other. The verdict of history has been reached in the case of
General Thomas. It is sure to come, and to be the same in this matter,
for Rosecrans.
To this dispatch, which can only be excused on the ground of wholly
inexcusable ignorance of the active preparations in progress and the
natural difficulties of an advance, General Rosecrans replied with his
accustomed clearness and spirit: "Your dispatch ordering me to move
forward without delay, reporting the movements of each corps till I
cross the Tennessee, is received. As I have determined to cross the
river as soon as practicable, and have been making all preparations and
getting such information as may enable me to do so without being driven
back, like Hooker, I wish to know if your order is intended to take away
my discretion as to the time and manner of moving my troops." To this
Halleck responded: "The orders for the advance of your army, and that it
be reported daily, are peremptory." General Rosecrans immediately wrote
the following reply, and, calling his corps commanders together, read
the dispatches given above. There was no dissent from the proposition
that at that stage of their preparations it was impossible to move. He
then read his reply as follows, and all approved and agreed that they
should support him:
"GENERAL HALLECK: My arrangements for beginning a continuous movement
will be completed and the execution begun Monday next. We have
information to show that crossing the Tennessee between Bridgeport and
Chattanooga is impracticable, but not enough to show whether we had
better cross above Chattanooga and strike Cleveland, or below Bridgeport
and strike in their rear. The preliminary movement of troops for the two
cases are very different. It is necessary to have our means of crossing
the river completed, and our supplies provided to cross sixty miles of
mountains and sustain ourselves during the operations of crossing and
fighting, before we move. To obey your order literally would be to push
our troops into the mountains on narrow and difficult roads, destitute
of pasture and forage, and short of water, where they would not be able
to maneuver as exigencies may demand, and would certainly cause ultimate
delay and probable disaster. If, therefore, 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."
On the following day Halleck replied as follows:
"I have communicated to you the wishes of the Government in plain and
unequivocal terms. The objective has been stated, and you have been
directed to lose no time in reaching it. The means you are to employ and
the roads you are to follow are left to your own discretion. If you wish
to promptly carry out the wishes of the Government you will not stop to
discuss mere details. In such matters I do not interfere."
This was answered the same day by General Rosecrans as follows:
"Your dispatch received. I can only repeat the assurance given before
the issuance of the order. This army shall move with all dispatch
compatible with the successful execution of our work. We are pressing
everything to bring up forage for our animals. The present rolling-stock
of the road will barely suffice to keep us day by day here, but I have
bought fifty more freight cars, which are arriving. Will advise you
daily."
This was the last of interference from Washington, but, accustomed as
all there were to interfering at will, and directing affairs according
to the situation as they saw it, they could not brook such manifestly
proper independence as was shown by Rosecrans, and from that time
forward there was needed only an excuse to insure his removal.
Had there been a tithe of the attention given to preventing the rebels
from concentrating on his front from every part of the Confederacy--in
fact, bringing Longstreet's veterans from the lines under Halleck's own
eyes--that there was to the kind of interference which has been noticed,
Bragg would have been destroyed in front of Chattanooga. But this
subject properly belongs in a succeeding letter. The dispatches given
above are well known, but their reproduction will prove a convenience to
readers who may not carry their exact terms in mind.
Ten days later, namely, on August 14, the movement to secure Chattanooga
began. A glance at the map will reveal its strategy.
Rosecrans had decided to cross the Tennessee in the vicinity of
Bridgeport, and subsequently the Raccoon and Lookout Mountain ranges at
points south of Chattanooga, and thus compel Bragg to evacuate the place
or to come out of it and fight for his line of communications. It is
easily seen that if after crossing the river the enemy, warned in time,
should be found in force on the western slopes of these ranges further
progress in that direction would have been impossible, and a return to
the north bank of the river obligatory. It was, therefore, necessary to
wholly deceive Bragg as to the points of crossing.
Burnside was marching from Kentucky into East Tennessee. Any apparent
movement of the Army of the Cumberland in force in that direction would
naturally lead Bragg to believe that a junction of the Union forces was
contemplated on his right.
Everything being ready, Crittenden opened the campaign with the
Twenty-first Corps. Leaving his camps at Hillsboro, Manchester, and
McMinnville on the 16th of August, he crossed the Cumberland Mountains
and occupied the Sequachee Valley from a point between Jasper and Dunlap
to Pikeville. Van Cleve held the latter place, Palmer was established at
Dunlap, and Wood at Anderson, between Dunlap and Jasper. All built
extensive camp fires and moved about in such ways as to convey to
observers from the heights the impression that the whole army was
moving. Meantime Minty's active cavalry had moved through Sparta and
driven Dibrell's cavalry eastward through Crossville, on to the
Tennessee, and over it, and Dibrell, having come to reconnoiter and see
what was going on, naturally got the idea that Rosecrans's army was
coming. The crossing of the Cumberland was but the first step of the
imposing diversion. Though the mountain roads were few and very
difficult, Crittenden's movements over them had been completed exactly
on time. The advance over Walden's Ridge, equally difficult, though it
was not quite as high as the main range, was immediately undertaken.
Minty, on the extreme left, appeared on the Tennessee more than thirty
miles above Blythe's Ferry, where he made most energetic commotion.
Hazen reached the river in the vicinity of Dallas. Two brigades were
strung out along the edge of the cliffs on the top of Walden's Ridge,
where they overlooked Blythe's Ferry, and could be seen from the other
side of the river. Minty, with his troopers, swept down the valley of
the Tennessee to near Chattanooga. Wilder and Wagner also appeared in
the valley. While a show of building boats was made in the small streams
about Blythe's Ferry, Wilder from the heights of Walden's Ridge,
opposite Chattanooga, opened fire on the town with artillery. Bragg was
thoroughly deceived. Forrest was ordered far up the Tennessee to
Kingston to watch for the expected crossing. Buckner was ordered from
East Tennessee toward Blythe's Ferry.
As may be supposed, Wilder's cannonading produced the wildest excitement
in Chattanooga. The rolling-stock of the railroads was hastened out of
reach. The depots of supplies were moved out of the range of the
unexpected bombardment. D. H. Hill's corps was hurried off to guard the
river above, and other heavy forces were moved in the same direction.
Everything done by Bragg was based upon the idea that Rosecrans was
moving in force to points on the river above the city.
Meantime the real movement was going on quietly sixty to eighty miles in
the opposite direction, in the vicinity of Bridgeport and Stevenson. A
force of cavalry for the purposes of observation, and to convey the idea
by quick movements that Rosecrans was feigning below, while really
expecting to cross above the city, was sent as far westward as Decatur.
Thus Rosecrans was operating along the river through a hundred miles of
mountain region and fifty miles of low country beyond, and in spite of
the natural difficulties every part of the plan was working with
precision.
Thomas and McCook on the right moved at the same time with Crittenden.
Reynolds, of Thomas's corps, had marched in advance and repaired the
roads by way of University, and down the eastern slope of the mountain
to Jasper. Brannan followed him, and both were at first kept well out of
sight of the river. Baird and Negley came down nearer to Bridgeport, and
McCook descended back of Stevenson. With the exception of Sheridan, at
Bridgeport, all were kept well out of sight from the enemy's cavalry on
the left bank.
Sheridan alone made a show of his presence and openly began the
construction of a trestle through the shoal water, in order to lessen
the length of the floating bridge. As this was without a decided show of
strength it deepened the impression that the movements on this wing were
the feint and those toward the upper river the real move. In fact, after
watching Sheridan's trestle building for a while from the other side of
the river, Anderson's brigade of infantry, the only infantry force
available to oppose a passage of the river, was withdrawn and sent to
Chattanooga.
The bridge for Caperton's Ferry was brought down on a train, which was
halted out of sight, and a road cut for its transportation through the
woods to a point near its destination, where the troops which were to
lay it were drilled in their work.
Early on the 29th fifty boats, each carrying fifty men, were brought out
of the woods near Caperton's, rushed across an open field, launched, and
quickly rowed to the opposite shore. The Confederate cavalry pickets
were driven off and twenty-five hundred men held the south bank. The
bridge was promptly laid. Davis was soon over, and then McCook's entire
corps, with cavalry, started promptly for Valley Head, forty miles down
the Lookout range. Reynolds collected boats at Shellmound, Brannan had
built rafts and cut out canoes at the mouth of Battle Creek. The long
bridge was successfully laid at Bridgeport, and before Bragg had
recovered from his surprise, in fact before he had comprehended the
extent of the movement, Rosecrans, with two corps, was over the river
and moving on his communications.
As soon as the crossing was assured, Crittenden marched with celerity by
way of the Sequatchee Valley towards the bridges and was soon across
with the main body and advancing on the left of it directly towards
Chattanooga.
This crossing of the Tennessee was a great feat. The bridges were not
sufficient for the army. Reynolds gathered small boats and improvised
his own means of crossing. Brannan's men had cut out canoes from immense
poplars and launched them in Battle Creek out of sight. Some of them
would hold fifty men. They also built rafts, one of them large enough to
carry artillery. These, with an abandoned rebel pontoon boat,
constituted Brannan's flotilla. When the signal was given the whole
swept out from behind the bushes which concealed the mouth of Battle
Creek and made for the opposite shore. The rebel pickets withdrew and
the crossing was secured. Then all his men who could swim, piling their
guns, clothing, and accouterments on a few fence rails, pushed these
before them and thus gained the opposite bank. Later, Wilder swam his
mounted brigade across the river and joined Crittenden south of
Chattanooga. Halleck must have had this ability for crossing a river in
the presence of an enemy in mind when he telegraphed Rosecrans, a few
weeks before, to move at once and keep moving.
But this crossing, and the grand diversion which made it possible, were
only the preliminary, and by no means the formidable parts of the
movement. To complete it, Rosecrans was to cut loose from his base,
carry twenty-five day's supplies and sufficient ammunition for two
battles, cross two precipitous and difficult mountain ranges wholly
within the enemy's territory, and their passes presumably strengthened
and defended, and, after crossing the last range at widely separated
points, to descend into the valley in the rear of that enemy's
stronghold, prepared for battle or any other contingencies which might
arise on this distant and isolated theater of action.
When Bragg discovered the real point of crossing and the lines of actual
movement it was too late to recall the forces dispatched up the
Tennessee or to post columns of sufficient strength on the slopes before
Rosecrans to impede his advance in force. How strong the positions thus
turned by the Union forces were will appear from the statement that so
precipitous and otherwise difficult were the roads over these ranges
that at several of them it required a day and a night for a division
with its artillery and reduced trains to make the ascent.
The Union commander had delayed his movement until the corn was ripe in
order that it might not be necessary to carry grain for his animals,
which would have largely increased his trains--so careful, thoughtful,
and wise was he in every detail of preparation.
Bragg's failure to resist in the vicinity of Rosecrans's crossings and at
the crossings of Raccoon Mountain was due in part to the fact that even
after he knew that the heads of columns were over the river he was still
inclined to look upon their movements as a feint, and to regard the real
point of danger to lie above the city. Rosecrans, even after crossing,
sought successfully to strengthen such impressions in Bragg's mind. He
directed Wagner's, Wilder's, and Minty's brigades to report to Hazen,
and with this force, some 7,000 strong, the latter was ordered to make a
conspicuous show of crossing the river far above Chattanooga. This
active and efficient officer admirably executed his orders. By extended
fires, by marchings and countermarchings, by moving his artillery
continuously across openings in sight from the opposite bank, by buglers
at widely separated points, and other similar devices, he easily created
the belief that an army was encamped on the right bank intending to
cross.
With the exception of this force, all of Rosecrans's army was south of
the river on September 4, and on the move. The right was already well on
its way. On the 6th his army had descended from Raccoon Mountain and
occupied the valley between that range and the western slope of Lookout
from a point seven miles from Chattanooga to Valley Head, forty-two
miles from the city. The next day McCook and Thomas began to ascend
Lookout at points respectively forty-two and twenty-six miles from
Chattanooga. On the 8th McCook's troops were in motion down the eastern
slope of the mountain toward Alpine, and Thomas was descending from
Steven's and Frick's Gap, both of which were near where the road from
Trenton, after running southwardly, is represented as leading over
Lookout. Crittenden had pushed small portions of his command up mere
mountain trails, and on the 9th these gained position where they could
look down upon Chattanooga. They saw no flags, and soon discovered that
Bragg had evacuated. The day before Wagner, still watching from the
north bank of the river, had reported to Rosecrans that the enemy was
leaving. The news came in the night, and Rosecrans ordered Crittenden to
ascertain the situation. His detachments on the mountain had already
discovered that the city was deserted. Crittenden was at once ordered to
march around the north point of Lookout, and follow Bragg toward
Ringgold. At night on the 9th Palmer and Van Cleve's divisions were
established at Rossville, five miles south of Chattanooga.
Thus, in three weeks from the time his diversion towards Bragg's right
began, and in five days from the time his army was over the river,
Rosecrans had repeated the Tullahoma campaign on a far greater scale,
and in the face of much more formidable obstacles, and absolutely
without fighting, except as Minty had been slightly engaged with Dibrell
near Sparta in the outset of the movement, had driven Bragg from the
mountain stronghold of Chattanooga, the objective of the campaign. It
was well said later by General Meigs, who came from Washington to
Chattanooga after its final occupation by the Union army, and spent some
days in studying the movements by which it had been secured: "It is not
only the greatest operation in our war, but a great thing when compared
with any war."
But the occupation of Chattanooga, in a military sense, was not
accomplished by sending Crittenden's two divisions beyond it and one
brigade into it. Bragg had only withdrawn to save his communications and
supplies, and to await the re-enforcements he knew to be hastening from
Virginia, from Mobile, and from Mississippi. The battle for Chattanooga
was yet to be fought. Bragg had retired with deliberation. He
established his headquarters at Lafayette, behind Pigeon Mountains, but
his rear guard never passed beyond Lee and Gordon's Mills.
The news that Rosecrans' troops were in Chattanooga, and that he had
pushed out after the retreating Bragg, made a tremendous impression upon
the North. It was accepted as a capture, and a military occupation of
that long-coveted stronghold. It is true it was occupied, but not in a
military sense, since the Union army had not been brought into it, or
concentrated between it and the enemy.
Hence arose that misconception, which is widespread still, that the Army
of the Cumberland had occupied Chattanooga, and thence marching out to
attack Bragg, had been defeated by the latter at Chickamauga, and driven
back in disorder into Chattanooga.
But, instead, Chickamauga was the battle for Chattanooga, fought by
Rosecrans while on the way to take military possession of it, and while
he was concentrating his army between Bragg and that city, the objective
of the Union campaign. The battle was not for the Chickamauga woods, but
for the passes behind them which controlled the way to Chattanooga.
These were secured as the immediate result of the battle, and the
successful occupation of Chattanooga in the military sense followed--an
occupation which lasted till the close of the war.
In connection with the fact of Crittenden's unopposed movement into
Chattanooga another point of general misapprehension arose, which,
through the years, has formed the basis of unfair and unthinking, if not
ignorant criticism of General Rosecrans' brilliant strategy. Why did not
Rosecrans face Thomas and McCook about in the valley west of Lookout,
where their movements would have been concealed, and hurry them after
Crittenden into Chattanooga? It was simply because with McCook's advance
nearly fifty miles from Chattanooga by the roads west of Lookout, and
Thomas's head of column already down and over Missionary Ridge, full
thirty miles away, to withdraw and send them in succession after
Crittenden would have been to have invited attack in detail from Bragg
upon each head of column as it followed Crittenden, with all the chances
in favor of Bragg's success. Besides, the shortest and surest, in fact
the only practicable line of concentration looking to the safety of the
widely-separated corps was through a movement to the left along the
eastern bases of Lookout and Missionary Ridge. It was this movement of
Rosecrans for concentrating on Crittenden's position south of Rossville
that led to the battle of Chickamauga. Bragg, having been heavily
re-enforced, started at the same time from Lafayette to interpose
between Rosecrans and Chattanooga, the Union objective of the whole
campaign.
Subsequent letters will follow this exciting concentration, and the
desperate contests of each army for position, and the bloody battles
which ensued, and by which Chattanooga was finally won.
H. V. B.
WASHINGTON, August 7.--[_Special._]--In the movements of the Union
armies none, from first to last, presented such brilliant strategy as
the two which brought General Rosecrans from Murfreesboro', to the rear
of Chattanooga. Almost equally wonderful was the successful
concentration of his widely scattered corps. This was accomplished in
the face of an enemy that had been heavily re-enforced with veteran
troops, and largely outnumbered General Rosecrans. The concentration,
moreover, united the Army of the Cumberland for battle between this
confident enemy and the city which was the objective of the Union
forces.
The story is crowded with brilliant and successful operations of
detached corps against greatly superior forces and of minor strategy,
which blend harmoniously with the more striking features of the great
campaign. It covers a period of intense anxiety for General Rosecrans
and his subordinate commanders, of most skillful action, and continued
danger to destruction in detail. It culminated in the delivery of a
battle, which, though still widely misunderstood, unquestionably ranks
for the stubbornness and effectiveness of its fighting and the
importance of its results with the most notable battles of the war.
A previous letter left the Army of the Cumberland where its strategy had
thrown it across three mountain ranges and the Tennessee River, and
brought it without loss to the rear of Chattanooga, at the foot of the
eastern base of the Lookout Mountain. This had compelled Bragg to
withdraw toward Lafayette. The left of the Union army, under General
Crittenden, had passed around the north end of Lookout, marched through
Chattanooga after Bragg, and occupied Rossville Gap. General McCook,
forty-two miles to the right, had descended to Alpine, while the center,
under General Thomas, was at Steven's Gap, directly opposite Bragg's
center, at Lafayette.
Finding that the enemy had withdrawn behind Pigeon Mountain, General
Rosecrans having been assured from Washington that no re-enforcements
had been sent from Lee's army, determined to push Bragg vigorously at
all points for the purpose of gaining every advantage which a retreat
presented, and of inflicting all the damage possible. Beyond question,
this put his army in serious peril, since Bragg had only retired to meet
re-enforcements promised and actually arriving from all quarters, and
was even then concentrated and ready to strike. McCook, on the right,
pushed in from Alpine and Summerville with Stanley's cavalry to
within seven miles of Lafayette without finding any signs of retreat.
He therefore wisely kept his trains and main force near the mountain.
[Illustration]
Negley, of Thomas, marched out from Steven's Gap beyond the Chickamauga
and his skirmishers deployed in front of Dug Gap. This advanced position
he held during the 10th, and early next morning was supported in it by
Baird's division. Here Bragg attempted his initiative, and developed his
preparations for advance. Two corps of infantry, Hill's and Walker's, a
division from Polk's command, and a division of cavalry, were in the
gaps of Pigeon Mountains, or the woods behind them, under orders to
advance on Negley. By a fortunate delay their combinations for attack
were not completed until Baird had arrived. The bold front displayed by
both of these officers still further held back those overwhelming forces
of Bragg. When the latter were ready to move, the skill, sharp fighting,
and able maneuvering under fire enabled these Union officers to bring
their troops back to the shelter of the mountain with comparatively
little loss. It was a thrilling and difficult situation, and the day a
most anxious one for Generals Rosecrans and Thomas.
The disappointment was great to Bragg when he learned that his heavy
converging columns from Catlett's Gap on his right, Dug Gap in the
center, and Blue Bird Gap on his left had met on the ground held by
Negley and Baird, only to find them retiring with such show of strength
and with such well ordered lines as enabled them to elude even serious
attack. Both these officers deserve far greater credit than they have
ever received for their courage, coolness, and ability. At night they
were supported by the arrival of Brannan and Reynolds from the west side
of the mountain, and the position of Thomas at Steven's Gap was secure.
Rosecrans' anxiety and Bragg's attention were instantly turned to the
Union left. The discovery on the 11th that the rebel rear guard under
Cheatham had not moved south of Lee & Gordon's showed Rosecrans that
whatever Bragg's intention may have been, he was then concentrating for
battle. As General Rosecrans himself declares in his official report,
the concentration of the Army of the Cumberland became a matter of life
and death.
Crittenden, from the 9th to the 12th, had carried on most vigorous
operations. Palmer and Van Cleve had advanced to Ringgold. Wood was
close at hand. Hazen, Minty, and Wilder, fresh from their part in the
brilliant feint north of the river, had joined Crittenden, and some
lively minor battles were the result. The discovery that the rebel rear
guard was still at Lee & Gordon's suddenly stopped these operations,
and on the 12th, under an order to concentrate with the utmost celerity
north of the Chickamauga, Crittenden established himself along that
river near and above Lee & Gordon's.
On the 13th Bragg had ordered an attack upon him by Polk with two corps
and the promise of the support of a third, hoping to overthrow this
wing, in continuance of his plan of defeating the Union corps in detail,
before the center or right could afford relief. In the face of such
threatening, with McCook over fifty miles away, and Thomas unable to
move from the center till McCook should be within supporting distance,
Rosecrans undertook the concentration of his army.
At this point, that justice may be done, it is well to contrast the
attitude which the governments at Washington and Richmond had assumed
toward this movement on the rebel center.
For weeks before General Rosecrans had moved forward he had tried to
impress upon the authorities at Washington the importance of giving him
strong support. Promising offers to raise veteran mounted troops from
several Eastern governors were laid before the War Department and
refused with insulting warmth. Two weeks later came the order from
Halleck to move at once and keep moving, which is treated of at length
in a former letter.
This gross ignorance at Washington of the gigantic difficulties of the
situation was equaled, if not surpassed, by a telegram of September 11,
the very day that Bragg's re-enforced army was moving against Rosecrans'
center and organizing for an attack on his left, and while Rosecrans and
Thomas and McCook were straining every nerve in a life and death effort
to concentrate their army. Said Halleck, by telegraph of this date:
"After holding the mountain passes on the west and Dalton, or some point
on the railroad, to prevent the return of Bragg's army, it will be
decided whether your army shall move further South into Georgia and
Alabama. It is reported here that a part of Bragg's army is re-enforcing
Lee. It is important that the truth of this should be ascertained as
early as possible."
This showed that Halleck shared the general and ignorant belief that
Rosecrans had occupied Chattanooga in a military sense.
At this time Longstreet's advance had been gone a week from under
Halleck's eyes near Washington, and two divisions of Johnston's troops
from Mississippi, and Buckner, from East Tennessee, had already joined
Bragg, and others were on the way.
The failure to give Rosecrans effective flanking supports was
inexcusable. The only explanation for it is found in the irritation and
dislike which his straightforward and independent dealings had aroused
in Washington, and a failure to understand the natural obstacles of the
position and the contemplated advance. Meade was in a state of enforced
inactivity before Lee. Grant's army was doing nothing to occupy Johnston
in Mississippi, and there was no such Union activity in front of Mobile
and Charleston as prevented troops being spared to Bragg from those
points. And so, while the Washington authorities were finding fault with
Rosecrans while he was pushing some of the most brilliant and effectual
moves of the war, and were not even lifting a finger to encourage or
even to protect him, the Richmond government was neglecting no means to
strengthen Bragg to the extent of its powers. As a result, in one week
from the date of Halleck's telegram inquiring whether Bragg was
re-enforcing Lee, Longstreet and Johnston and Walker and Buckner had
reached Bragg from the extremes of the Confederacy, and he had moved to
attack Rosecrans with 70,000 men.
In this criminal neglect of Rosecrans the authorities were without
excuse. No friend of Stanton's or Halleck's have even yet attempted to
explain, much less defend it. These and other high officers, at one time
or another, arraigned General Rosecrans as solely responsible for what
they chose to designate as the disaster and defeat of Chickamauga. It
was the shortest way for some of them to divert attention from the
terrible neglect and responsibility which rested on their heads. But
even if the favorable chances for the concentration of Confederate
forces against Rosecrans had escaped unwilling observation at
Washington, the authorities there were without excuse, since the case
was very pointedly placed before them in an editorial of the Cincinnati
Commercial, which excited so much attention that the editor was
officially notified that such articles were highly indiscreet. This was
as early as September 1. In view of what occurred a few weeks later, and
of the evidence it gives of ample warning, it is interesting to
reproduce this editorial of Mr. Halstead, printed on the date named,
under a title, a "Point of Danger." Said the editor:
"Jeff Davis and his generals are as well informed as we are of the
presence of a considerable part of the army of the Potomac in New York
City to enforce the draft, and that consequently an advance on Richmond
need not be apprehended for some weeks. They have also heard of the
presence of Admiral Farragut in New York, and infer from the
circumstance that there is no immediate danger of an attack on Mobile.
They know the situation at Charleston, and are not mistaken in the
opinion that the advance upon that city must be slow, by process of
engineering, digging, and heavy cannonading. They do not need large
bodies of troops to make the defense; negro laborers, engineer officers
and gunners being all that are required. General Grant's army, as is
well known, is, for the most part, resting from its labors in undisputed
possession of an enormous territory. The real aggressive movement of the
Federal forces is upon the rebel center; that is to say, East Tennessee,
and it is extremely unlikely that the rebels are deficient in
information as to the strength and intentions of Generals Rosecrans and
Burnside.
"The important question is whether they will improve the opportunity by
concentrating upon their center. The reports that General Joe Johnston
has joined his forces to those recently under Bragg, and has thus
gathered a force almost if not quite equal numerically to those in the
hands of General Rosecrans, have in addition the immense advantages of
the occupation of mountain passes, and that are to be found in pursuing
a defensive system of warfare. General Lee is reported to have sent
troops to East Tennessee, and it is probable that he has done so, as,
thanks to the New York riots, he has some divisions temporarily to spare
from Virginia. If the rebels do give up East Tennessee and Northern
Georgia without a struggle, that is to say, if Generals Rosecrans and
Burnside complete the operations in which they are engaged without
meeting serious resistance, it may be taken as conclusive evidence of
the exhaustion of the rebellion."
Several subsequent editorials enforced these ideas, and were even so
definite as to point out Johnston, Longstreet, and Buckner as the
commands which were likely to re-enforce Bragg.
General Rosecrans had had these general points of danger in mind, and
made them known to the Government nearly a month before he crossed the
Tennessee. But his request for more men and flanking supports was
refused at the War Department with much warmth and most inconsiderate
emphasis. This Commercial editorial, therefore, startled him, and his
records show that he sent Mr. Halstead a sharp letter intimating that
such an editorial was little better than a call to the Jeff Davis
government to fall on him. It was, however, the clear common sense of
the situation; and if the Washington authorities had heeded it, instead
as was their custom, sneering at "newspaper generals" and newspaper ways
of carrying on the war, many lives would have been saved at Chickamauga
which were lost because of the unequal contest, and there would never
have been any questioning of that costly, but no less decided victory.
It is further true that General Peck, stationed in North Carolina, sent
word to General Rosecrans, under date of September 6, that Longstreet's
corps was passing southward over the railroads. Colonel Jacques, of the
Seventy-third Illinois, who had come up from the South, tried in vain
for ten days to gain admittance in Washington, to communicate this fact
of Longstreet's movement to Halleck and Stanton, and then, without
accomplishing it, started West, and reached his command in time to fight
with the regiment at Chickamauga. There had been time enough, after
General Rosecrans's explanations of his proposed plan, to force
Burnside, with twenty thousand men, down from East Tennessee, and to
have brought all needed strength for the other flank from the Army of
the Tennessee on the Mississippi. Even when ordered up, after the
battle, this latter loitered to a degree that its commander will never
be able to satisfactorily explain.
To return from this digression, Bragg on the 13th had ordered an attack
by three corps on Crittenden. The latter, by his great activity and by
the bold operations of Van Cleve, Wood, Palmer, and the brigades of
Hazen, Minty, and Wilder, had created the impression of much greater
strength than they really had, and Polk moved cautiously. Finally, just
as he was ready to attack, his column on the Lafayette road encountered
Van Cleve moving on him with a single brigade of infantry. So vigorously
did this officer attack that he forced Polk's advance back for three
miles, and created the impression of a general Union advance. This
disconcerted Polk, and instead of ordering his forces forward, he
halted, took up a defensive position, and sent to Bragg for
re-enforcements. Thus Negley and Baird, by their pluck and skill in
front of overwhelming forces, and Palmer and Crittenden's active
divisions and attached brigades on the left, by their unhesitating
attacks wherever they developed the enemy, and by this last one
delivered in the face of an advance of three full corps on one, had made
the concentration of the army possible, and had saved it. The next day
Steedman, that lion of battle, had reached Rossville, in immediate
support of Crittenden, with two brigades of his own command and two
regiments and two batteries temporarily attached, having marched from
Bridgeport, a distance of forty miles, in twenty-eight hours.
The appearance and wonderful activity of Hazen, Wilder, and Minty's
brigades on the left of Crittenden's, and Steedman's forces of the
reserve corps at Rossville, with the fact that McCook was nearing
Thomas, and that the latter had extended his left to within near
supporting distance of Crittenden, seem to have restrained Bragg from
attack in any direction after the failure of his orders to Polk to
attack on the 13th until his orders of the night of the 17th for an
attack the next day upon Crittenden's left and rear.
During this period of comparative inaction against the Union front,
Rosecrans insured the concentration of his army in time for battle.
McCook, not understanding the roads along the top of the mountain, and
not deeming it prudent to consume the time necessary to explore them,
had crossed Lookout twice, at the cost of more than a full day, and
appeared with his head of column at General Thomas's camps during the
16th. On the 17th the latter closed the heads of his columns toward
Crittenden.
The days of concentration had been a period of the most intense anxiety,
of unceasing watchfulness, of unbending determination, of brilliant
minor affairs, of unflinching courage, and, withal, of cool calculation
and precise execution for every part of the army.
While, on the morning of the 18th, the three corps of the Union army and
its reserve were in position where each could support the other if
attacked, its supreme effort for position was to come. Bragg's order for
battle contemplated crossing the Chickamauga some miles below Lee and
Gordon's and driving the Union left under Crittenden back on the center
and right under Thomas and McCook, and thus, by thrusting his columns
between Rosecrans and Chattanooga, recover that place and force the
Union army back into the mountains, from which position it is doubtful
if it could have extricated itself.