The defeats and disappointments of the various campaigns in Virginia had
gradually convinced the authorities at Washington that too many people
were trying to direct the Union forces. With Lee there was practically
no interference; but the commanders who opposed him were subject to the
orders of the General-in-Chief at Washington, who was, to some extent,
controlled by the Secretary of War, whose superior was the President,
and after almost every engagement a Congressional Committee, known as
the "committee on the conduct of the war," held a solemn investigation
in which praise and blame were distributed with the best intentions and
worst possible results. All these offices and officials were accordingly
more or less responsible for everything that occurred, but not one of
them was ever wholly to blame. This mistake, however, was at last fully
realized and a careful search began for some one man to whom the supreme
command could be entrusted. But for a long time no one apparently
thought that the Western army contained any very promising material.
Nevertheless, Grant, Sheridan, Sherman and Rosecrans were then in that
army and, of these four; Rosecrans was regarded by many as the only real
possibility.
Indeed, at the moment when Grant was closing in upon Vicksburg, and
Lee and Meade were struggling at Gettysburg, Rosecrans, who had been
entrusted with the important duty of conducting a campaign to drive the
Confederates out of Tennessee, was fully justifying the high opinions of
his admirers. Between June 24, 1863, and September 9th of that year
he certainly outmaneuvered his opponents, occupying the all-important
position of Chattanooga, and forcing the able Confederate General Bragg
to fall back with more speed than order.
During all this time the North had been insisting that the army should
be placed in charge of some commander who could master Lee, and this
demand had found expression in a popular poem bearing the refrain
"Abraham Lincoln! Give us a Man!" To the minds of many people Rosecrans
had clearly demonstrated that he was "the Man," and it is possible that
his subsequent acts were prompted by over-eagerness to end his already
successful campaign with a startlingly brilliant feat of arms. At all
events, he determined not to rest satisfied with having driven the
Confederates from the field, but to capture or destroy their entire
force.
With this idea he divided his army and rushed it by different routes
over the mountains in hot pursuit of the foe. But the trouble with this
program was that Bragg had not really retreated at all, having merely
moved his army aside waiting for an opportunity to strike. Indeed,
Rosecrans had barely plunged his troops into the various mountain passes
on their fruitless errand before the whole Confederate force loomed up,
threatening to destroy his widely-separated, pursuing columns, one by
one, before they could be united.
This unexpected turn of affairs utterly unnerved the Union General, and
although he did manage by desperate exertions to collect his
scattered army, he completely lost his head when Bragg attacked him at
Chickamauga, Georgia, on the 19th of September, 1863, and before
the savage battle of that name had ended he retired from the field,
believing that his army had been totally destroyed.
Such, undoubtedly, would have been its fate had not General Thomas and
his brave troops covered the retreat, by holding the whole Confederate
army in check for hours and even forcing it to yield portions of the
bloody field. From that day forward Thomas was known as "The Rock of
Chickamauga," but the heroic stand of his gallant men barely sufficed to
save the Union army, which reached the intrenchments of Chattanooga only
just in time, with the Confederates hot upon its trail.
Had Bragg overtaken his flying opponent, he would doubtless have made an
end of him then and there, but it was not altogether with regret that he
saw him enter Chattanooga, for with the roads properly blocked he knew
the place would prove a perfect trap. He, accordingly, began a close
siege which instantly cut off all Rosecrans' communication with the
outside world, except by one road which was in such a wretched condition
as to be impossible for a retreating army. Indeed, the heavy autumn
rains soon rendered it impracticable even for provision wagons, and as
no supplies could reach the army by any other route, it was not long
before starvation began to stare the besieged garrison in the face.
Meanwhile, Rosecrans, almost wild with anxiety and mortification, sent
dispatch after dispatch to Washington describing his condition and
imploring aid, but though he still had an effective army under his
command and plenty of ammunition, he made no attempt whatever to save
himself from his impending doom. Day by day the situation grew more and
more perilous; thousands upon thousands of horses and mules died for
lack of food and the men were so nearly reduced to starvation that they
greedily devoured the dry corn intended for the animals.
All this time the authorities in Washington were straining every nerve
to rescue the beleaguered army. Sixteen thousand men under General
Hooker were rushed to its relief, provisions were forwarded within a
day's march of the town, awaiting the opening of new roads, and finally,
when the stream of frantic telegrams from the front showed that the army
had practically no leadership, hurried orders were forwarded to Grant,
authorizing him to remove Rosecrans, place Thomas temporarily in control
and take the field himself at the earliest possible moment.
This unexpected summons found Grant in a serious condition, for some
weeks earlier his horse had fallen under him, crushing his leg so
severely that for a time it was feared he might be crippled for life,
and he was still on crutches suffering intense pain when the exciting
orders were placed in his hands. Nevertheless, he promptly started on
his desperate errand, traveling at first by rail and steamer and then
in an ambulance, until its jolting motion became unbearable when he had
himself lifted into the saddle with the grim determination of riding the
remainder of the way. Even for a man in perfect physical condition the
journey would have been distressing, for the roads, poor at their best,
were knee deep in mud and a wild storm of wind and rain was raging. Time
and again his escort had to lift the General from his horse and carry
him across dangerous washouts and unaffordable streams, but at the
earliest possible moment they were always ordered to swing him into the
saddle again.
Thus, mile after mile and hour after hour, the little cavalcade crept
toward Chattanooga, Grant's face becoming more haggard and furrowed with
pain at every step, but showing a fixed determination to reach his goal
at any cost. On every side signs of the desperate plight of the besieged
garrison were only too apparent. Thousands of carcasses of starved
horses and mules lay beside the road amid broken-down wagons, abandoned
provisions and all the wreckage of a disorganized and demoralized army.
But if the suffering officer noted these ominous evidences of disaster,
his face afforded no expression of his thought. Plastered with mud and
drenched to the skin, he rode steadily forward, speaking no word
and scarcely glancing to the right or left, and when at last the
excruciating journey came to an end, he hastened to interview Thomas and
hear his report, without even waiting to change his clothes or obtain
refreshment of any kind.
It was not a very cheerful story which Thomas confided to his Chief
before the blazing headquarters' fire, but the dripping and exhausted
General listened to it with no indication of discouragement or dismay.
"What efforts have been made to open up other roads for provisioning the
army?" was the first question, and Thomas showed him a plan which he and
Rosecrans had worked out. Grant considered it in silence for a moment
and then nodded his approval. The only thing wrong with the plan was
that it had not been carried out, was his comment, and after a personal
inspection of the lines he gave the necessary authority for putting
it into immediate operation. Orders accordingly began flying right
and left, and within twenty-four hours the army was busily engaged in
gnawing a way out of the trap.
Additional roads were essential for safety but to gain them the
Confederates had to be attacked and a heavy force was therefore ordered
to seize and hold a point known as Brown's Ferry. This relieved the
situation at once and meanwhile the new commander had hurried a special
messenger to Sherman, ordering him to drop everything else and march his
Vicksburg veterans toward Chattanooga without an instant's delay. The
advance of this strong reënforcement was promptly reported to Bragg, who
saw at a glance that unless it could be stopped there was every prospect
that his Chattanooga victims would escape.
He accordingly determined upon a very bold but very dangerous move.
Not far away lay General Burnside and a small Union army, guarding the
important city of Knoxville, Tennessee, and against this the Confederate
commander dispatched a heavy force, in the hope that Grant would be
compelled to send Sherman to the rescue.
But the effect of this news upon Grant was very different from Bragg's
expectations, for realizing that his adversary must have seriously
weakened himself in sending the expedition against Burnside, he ordered
Hooker, whose 16,000 men were already on hand, to make an immediate
attack with a force drawn from various parts of the army, and on
November 24, 1863, after a fierce engagement known as the battle of
Lookout Mountain, the Union troops drove their opponents from one of the
two important heights commanding Chattanooga.
In this success Sherman had effectively cooperated by attacking and
holding the northern end of Missionary Ridge and Grant determined to
follow up his advantage by moving the very next morning against this
second and more formidable range of hills. Therefore, ordering Hooker to
attack the Confederate right on Missionary Ridge and get in their rear
at that point while Sherman assaulted their left, he held Thomas's
troops lying in their trenches at the front awaiting a favorable
opportunity to send them crashing through the center.
The main field of battle was plainly visible to the silent commander as
he looked down upon it from a hill known as Orchard Knob, and he watched
the effect of the attacks on both wings of the Confederate line with
intense interest. Reënforcements were evidently being hurried to the
Confederate right and left and Hooker, delayed by the destruction of a
bridge, did not appear at the critical moment. Nevertheless, for some
time Sherman continued to advance, but as Grant saw him making slower
progress and noted the heavy massing of troops in his path, he ordered
Thomas's waiting columns to attack the center and carry the breastworks
at the foot of Missionary Ridge.
With a blare of bugles, 20,000 blue-coated men seemed to leap from the
ground and 20,000 bayonets pointed at Missionary Ridge whose summits
began to blaze forth shot and shell. Death met them at every stride but
the charging troops covered the ground between them and the rifle pits
they had been ordered to take in one wild rush and tore over them like
an angry sea. Then, to the utter astonishment of all beholders, instead
of halting, they continued charging up the face of Missionary Ridge,
straight into the mouths of the murderous cannon.
"By whose order is this?" Grant demanded sternly.
"By their own, I fancy," answered Thomas.
Incredible as this suggestion seemed, it offered the only possible
explanation of the scene. No officer would have dared to order troops to
such certain destruction as apparently awaited them on the fire-crowned
slopes of Missionary Ridge. Spellbound Grant followed the men as they
crept further and further up the height, expecting every instant to see
them hurled back as Pickett's heroes were at Gettysburg, when suddenly
wave upon wave of blue broke over the crest, the Union flags fluttered
all along the line and before this extraordinary charge the Confederates
broke and fled in disorder.
Setting spur to his horse, Grant dashed across the hard-fought field and
up the formidable ridge, issuing orders for securing all that had been
gained. An opening wedge had now been inserted in Chattanooga's prison
doors, and by midnight the silent captain had thrown his whole weight
against them and they fell. Then calmly turning his attention to
Burnside, he ordered him to hold his position at every hazard until he
could come to the rescue and, setting part of his victorious veterans in
motion toward Knoxville, soon relieved its garrison from all danger.
With the rescue of two Union armies to his credit Grant was generally
regarded as the most fitting candidate for the chief command of the
army, but by this time it was fully realized that the man who held that
position would have to be invested with far greater powers than any
Union general had thus far possessed. Halleck expressed himself as
only too anxious to resign; Congress passed a law reviving the grade of
lieutenant-general with powers which, up to that time, had never been
entrusted to anyone save Washington, and responded to the cry, "Abraham
Lincoln! Give us a MAN!" the President, on March 1st, 1864, nominated
Ulysses Grant as Commander-in-Chief of all the armies of the United
States.