CHAPTER IX.

PREPARATIONS AT CHATTANOOGA.

Immediately succeeding the close of the Vicksburg campaign General Grant gave his time to the reorganization and administration of his department. Visiting from point to point, he personally inspected the condition and needs of each locality, settling all perplexing questions that naturally arose, owing to the absence of civil authority, regulating the military and civic jurisdiction over the conquered territory, all of which were settled with great good judgment, and met with the hearty concurrence of the government at Washington. Various expeditions were sent out in every direction to "spy out the nakedness of the land." An important one under General Ransom captured Natchez; among the "spoils" were five thousand head of cattle designed for the Confederates. General Steele

NATHANIEL P. BANKS.

was dispatched to Helena to render important aid to General Schofield, commanding Department of the Missouri. Ord and Herron joined General Banks to take part

in new movements projected in the Department of the Gulf. Testimonials and banquets were tendered to, and accepted by General Grant, from the cities of Memphis and New Orleans.

At the latter city, while returning from a review of the Thirteenth Army Corps, his horse became frightened by the letting off of steam by a railroad locomotive. Dashing madly against a carriage that was coming in an opposite direction, horse and rider were thrown upon the street. The result was a most serious accident. His hip being temporarily paralyzed, rendered him quite helpless, nor was he able to walk without crutches, or mount his horse, without assistance until after he had reached Chattanooga, near the close of October. Many seriously thought that his services would be lost to the country.

Rosecrans, as stated in the previous chapter, had, "by a scratch," won the battle of Murfreesboro, January 2, driving the Confederate General Bragg, into Southern Tennessee. On June 24, 1863, having had a long rest, and recruited his army, he again moved upon the enemy, and, by a series of flank movements, succeeded in crowding him into Georgia. The Union general following closely took post on the 9th of September, at Chattanooga, on the left bank of the Tennessee.

Chattanooga at this time was probably the most important strategic position in the Rebel States. It commands the southern entrance into Tennessee, and lies at the mouth of Chattanooga Valley, which is formed by Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, through which Chattanooga Creek flows into the Tennessee. It is also the junction of the railways leading from Memphis to Charleston, from Richmond to Nashville, and south to Atlanta.

The Confederates had been strongly reinforced by John

ston from Mississippi, and Longstreet from Virginia, Bragg having at this time an army of sixty thousand men; while Rosecrans' effective force was only forty-five thousand, he having had to garrison the places he had left in his rear. These were divided into three corps, commanded by Thomas, McCook, and Crittenden; the latter general held Chattanooga while the other corps were in the mountains, twenty miles distant.

Owing to the threatened attitude of Bragg, Rosecrans brought his army together at Chickamauga Creek, about

VIEW OF LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN AND VALLEY FROM CHATTANOOGA.

nine miles from Chattanooga. On the 19th of September General Bragg attacked the Union forces, and after two days' desperate fighting pierced the center, and scattered the right wing in utter rout from the field. General Rosecrans, with the shattered corps of McCook and Crittenden, left the field, retiring to Chattanooga. General Thomas commanding the Union left, with desperate firmness, hardly equalled in the annals of war, resisted every attempt of the enemy to dislodge him or to get between him and Chatta

nooga. Bragg, finding that his attacks were useless, desisted from the attempt; when, at nightfall, under cover of the darkness, Thomas withdrew to Chattanooga.

The Union losses in this hard-fought defense amounted in killed, wounded, and missing to nearly nineteen thousand, while the Confederates, being the attacking party, was even greater. Owing to the timely arrival of General Hooker with two corps from the Army of the Potomac, the army of Rosecrans was saved from a state of siege and all possibility of annihilation.

On the 16th of October General Grant received a telegraphic dispatch from Halleck instructing him to proceed at once to Louisville, Kentucky, with his staff, etc., for immediate operations in the field. At Indianapolis he was met by Secretary of War Stanton, who placed in his hands the following order of the War Department:

GENERAL ORDERS No. 337

WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S Office,

WASHINGTON, October 16, 1863.

By direction of the President of the United States, the Departments of the Ohio, of the Cumberland, and of the Tennessee, will constitute the Military Division of the Mississippi. Major-General U. S. Grant, United States Army, is placed in command of the Military Division of the Mississippi, with his headquarters in the field.

Major-General W. S. Rosecrans, United States volunteers, is relieved from the command of the Department and Army of the Cumberland. Major-General G, H. Thomas is hereby assigned to that command.

By order of the Secretary of War,

E. D. TOWNSEND, A. A. G. By this order General Grant was intrusted with the most extensive territory ever controlled by one general commander in the field in America. It comprised three departments, before known as the Cumberland, the Ohio, and the Tennessee, embracing nine States and portions of States.

It extended from the Alleghenies to the Mississippi, and contained over two hundred thousand soldiers. The repulse of Rosecrans at Chattanooga had caused intense anxiety and interest throughout the North. It was felt that the crisis demanded energetic action, and that the hero of Vicksburg could alone extricate the Union forces from their perilous position.

. General Sherman, who was at Memphis when he heard that Grant had been ordered North, at once wrote to him as follows: "Accept the command of the great Army of the Center; don't hesitate. By your presence at Nashville you will unite all discordant elements, and impress the enemy in propor

tion; all success and honor to you!"

Notwithstanding

Grant's crippled condition, he at once set to work to concentrate his forces at Chattanooga. To General Thomas at Chattanooga he telegraphed at 11 o'clock on the night of October 19, from Louisville: "Hold Chatta

GEORGE H. THOMAS.

nooga at all hazards; I will be there as soon as possible." Back flashed over the wires from the brave and noble Thomas: "I will hold the town till we starve."

Early the next morning he proceeded to Nashville, from which point he issued several orders. To Burnside, who was in command of the Department of the Ohio, and