about seven thousand strong. He was then to make a feint of crossing the Tennessee. Hazen executed this order perfectly. Moving with his troops simultaneously at several crossings, he caused his artillery to pass to and fro, and built bivouac fires, doing so well that the Confederates thought they had a whole army before them.

He

Davis' and Johnson's divisions of the Twentieth Army Corps, crossed on pontoons from the 29th to the 31st of August. The bridge at Bridgeport had to be so strengthened as to enable Thomas and Sheridan to transfer their heavy artillery and trains to the southern shore. On the 2d of September, after Sheridan had crossed with his infantry, 216 yards of the trestle work again broke down. This was fixed by dint of hard labor in two days, and on the 4th of September, early in the morning, Baird's division, followed by all the artillery and wagons of the Fourteenth Corps, filed over. Negley followed Johnson at Caperton's Ferry, and going up the left bank bivouacked near Taylor's store. had thus passed to the rear of Sheridan, who proceeded from Bridgeport to Trenton in order to effect a junction with the other two divisions of the Twentieth Corps. On the same day, McCook sent Davis down into Will's Valley, whom Johnson had relieved on the summit of Raccoon Mountain. On the 3d, each division made a forward movement. On the left, Brannan and Reynolds proceeded up the Nickajack Valley, in which was a grotto that furnished the Confederates with saltpetre. It was therefore very precious, and our capture of it was a severe loss to the enemy. This force proceeded to Lookout Creek. Negley toiled up the slopes of Raccoon Mountain. On the right, McCook's three divisions occupied the eastern declivity of that mountain and descended easily into Will's Valley, between Trenton and Johnson's Creek.

On the 4th instant, two divisions of the Twentieth Corps were near Trenton with Sheridan. By this date all the Union army, with the exception of Hazen's four brigades, had cleared the Tennessee, and were collected on the eastern side of the Raccoon Mountain.

Bragg, troubled and undecided, had until now remained inactive. On the 1st of September, he concluded to wait for his enemy on the plain to the east of Lookout Mountain. Only one serious motive could justify this plan: it brought him nearer to the reinforcements that were promised, and by delaying the struggle gave them time to arrive. But it involved the evacuation of Chattanooga, which was a necessary sacrifice if Stephen's Gap was abandoned to the Union army. Long trains carried to Atlanta all the material accumulated in Chattanooga for two

years, but the commanding general did not yet set his troops in motion. Polk's command had, however, taken the line of march in the direction of Lafayette. On the 8th, the rear guard left the works so laboriously thrown up around Chattanooga. Next morning the whole of Polk's corps was halting at Gordon's Mills, on the banks of the West Chickamauga River. Buckner had been left on the Hiawassee two days. On the 7th of September he received orders to start at once to the south. Marching over forty-four miles in forty-eight hours, Buckner on the 9th arrived upon the banks of the Chickamauga, and placed himself a few miles above Polk's corps, on Anderson's farm. On the 8th, Wagner's outposts reported to Rosecrans that the enemy appeared to be evacuating Chattanooga. He immediately sent Crittenden to ascertain the fact. On the 9th, in the morning, Beatty's and Grose's brigades climbed Lookout Mountain to Summertown, on the summit, and looking down, saw Chattanooga deserted. At noon the Federal army was occupying the Gate City of the Confederacy.

In this campaign Sheridan's division did its full share of the heavy work it required. Owing to the nature of the operations, however, it afforded no scope for that terrible tenacity and stubborn fighting which had marked him on the battle-fields of Perryville and Stone River. But what the Tullahoma campaign most fully developed was the little soldier's ability to meet all the exigencies of dangerous marches, bold tactics, and daring engineering work, in the constant expectation of sharp attack and severe fighting. Nor was he found wanting in any one of these emergencies. It has been customary to consider Sheridan as a great fighter, and that only. But the careful reviewer of his wonderful career will find that he could think as well as fight; plan as well as attack; consider conditions before moving, and that, in fact, his apparent audacity and recklessness in the field itself, was based upon the conditions preceding as well as surrounding him. Even as a division commander he was not alone a soldier and fighter; he was a leader and a general also.

CHAPTER IX.

THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA.

THE FIELD IN WHICH SHERIDAN WAS TRAINED-ROSECRANS' MOVEMENTSHOW THE COMMANDER OF CAVALRY WAS MADE-THE DEADLY CHICKA• MAUGA SHERIDAN AND DAVIS SAVE THE RIGHT WING-HOLDING THR GAP AT DRY VALLEY-LONGStreet's VETERANS - FIGHTING CHEATHAM AGAIN ALWAYS A POWER ON MARCH AND field.

"OLD BRAINS" planned in the spring of 1862, a campaign designed to secure the control and possession of Chattanooga. In the early days of September, 1863, the Army of the Cumberland once more unfurled the flag of our Union over this very important strategetical position. In this narrative, there will be little to do with criticising, pro or con, the operations of the commanding generals. The personal and descriptive features, with results, and the action leading thereto, are the objects of our work. It is well, however, to suggest that the leading operations of the Union armies during the years of the Civil War, were largely based upon grand strategetical necessities. The great topographical fields upon which their movements were directed rendered this a necessity; yet as a matter of fact most writers and critics have either missed or avoided such important considerations in formulating their judgments. The Union campaigns have, as a rule, been treated too often as so many bold and brave, but isolated endeavors, while the fact remains that each of them was in the main, part of a pre-considered and pre-arranged plan of action, looking far beyond the immediate results it was hoped to achieve, and aiming deliberately, if successful, towards the occupation of some important field of operations, or to the possession, as of Chattanooga, of an especially significant point or post-a veritable "coign of vantage."

In general outlines the movements which began in May, 1862, with the battle of Pittsburg Landing, or Shiloh, and closed with that of Mission Ridge, in the fall of 1863, must be considered as among the boldest of our earlier operations. They cleared Kentucky, held Tennessee from Memphis to the Appalachian Range; opened the Mississippi River to New Orleans; kept Missouri in the Union lines; pre

extensive operations, its weighty responsibilities, and its splendid action, that our young soldier, General Sheridan, was so thoroughly learning that great "art of war," which he afterward practiced under General Grant with such tremendous vigor and magnificent results in the closing months of the civil conflict. Sheridan could hardly have had a better trainingschool, a more fitting field of preparatory operations. And his record therein shows how equal he was to every duty.

General Grant is on record at this date in Sheridan's career, as affirming him to be one of the two best division commanders that he knew of, General Crocker being the other officer honored with such commendation. As an illustration of the experiences through which Sheridan was passing, a brief summary of what General Rosecrans himself * declares to have been the chief features of the strategetical and fighting campaign of the Army of the Cumberland, between October 30, 1862, and the 22d of September, 1863, may not be out of place.

General Rosecrans dates the commencement of his army's active

"Campaign for Chattanooga," Century, May, 1887, W. S. Rosecrans.

service from December 26, 1862, when, he says, it began from Nashville" its movement for Chattanooga, distant 151 miles." The battlefield of Murfreesboro', thirty-two miles from Nashville, was fought over and won, four days later. Twenty per cent. of the Union forces were killed or wounded. The Confederates retired to Duck River, thirtytwo miles south, and established "a formidable intrenched camp." Another was also established at Tullahoma," where the McMinnville branch intersects the main Nashville and Chattanooga railroad." It was expected that our forward movement would begin May 1, 1863General Burnside, commanding Department of the Ohio, arranged a plan of coöperation with Rosecrans for the relief of East Tennessee, then occupied by the Confederate forces under Buckner. Rosecrans plan was as follows:

Ist.

Follow the lines of the Nashville and Chattanooga railroad. 2d. Manœuvre Bragg out of his intrenched camps by flank movements to the east of him, fight and drive him until he crossed the Ten

nessce.

3. Deceive him as to the point at which we should cross. 4th.

Manoeuvre him out of Chattanooga. Then fight him, choosing, if possible, our own battle-field.

5th. Burnside's part was to guard the left flank, and enter East Tennessee. Bragg's attention would thus be drawn northward.

6th. These operations must be so timed in the driving of Bragg out of Middle Tennessee as not to force him southward and thus to the reinforcement of General Joseph E. Johnston, who might thereby be able to seriously imperil the Union army in its operations about Vicksburg.

It was this necessity that delayed Rosecrans' movements till June 24, 1863. There were seventeen days of severe rain, yet on the 4th of July, we had occupied both the Duck River and Tullahoma camps. On the 7th, Bragg was in full retreat over the Cumberland Mountains. Rosecrans' headquarters were at Winchester, fifty miles east from Murfreesboro'. Middle Tennessee was in our full possession, with the Nashville and Chattanooga railroad also. This had been achieved within fifteen days, with a loss on our part of but 5S6 killed and wounded. Chattanooga is sixty-nine miles from Winchester, lying on the south side of the Tennessee, which is thereabouts from twelve hundred to twenty seven hundred feet wide. The Cumberland Mountains, directly in front, were to be crossed before the river could be reached. On the north side, beyond the range, lay Sequatchie Valley. East of it the Waldron Ridge is cut from the Cumberland Range by the stream that gives a name to the long, narrow valley. The Tennes