Maj. Lee, to ascertain the cause of Polk's delay, and urge him to a prompt
and speedy movement. Gen. Polk, notwithstanding his clerical antece-
dents, was noted for his fondness of military osteatation, and carried a
train of staff ofhcers whose numbers and superb dress were the occasions
of singular remark. Maj. Lee found him seated at a comfortable break-
fast, surrounded by brilliantly dressed officers, and delivered his message
with military bluntnesjs and brevity. Gen. Polk replied that he had or-
dered Hill to open the action, that he was waiting for him, and he added :
" Do tell Gen. Bragg that my heart is overflowing with anxiety for the
attack ā overflowing with anxiety, sir." Maj. Lee returned to the com-
manding-general, and reported the reply literally. Bragg uttered a terri-
ble exclamation, in which Polk, Hill, and all his generals were included.
" Maj. Lee," he cried, " ride along the line, and order every cajptoAn to take
his men instantly into action." In fifteen minutes the battle was joined ;
but three hours of valuable time had been lost, in which Rosecrans was
desperately busy in strengthening his position.
It was 10 o'clock when the battle opened on the right wing of the Con-
federates, and the command " forward " ran down their ranks. Breckin-
ridge moved forward with his division, but, after a severe contest, was
pressed back. Had the reserve ordered forward to Breckinridge's support
come up in time, the enemy's position might have been carried, and pre-
vented the conflict of the afternoon. As it was, notwithstanding the par-
tial repulse, several pieces of artillery were captured and a large number
of prisoners.
At the same time each succeeding division to the left gradually be-
came engaged with the enemy, extending to Longstreet's wing. "Walker's
division advanced to the relief of Breckinridge, and, after an engagement
of half an hour, was also compelled to retire under the severe fire of
the enemy. The gallant Tennesseans, under Cheatham, then advanced to
the relief of Walker, but even they wavered and fell back under the ter-
rible fire of the enemy. Cleburne's division, which had several times
gallantly charged the enemy, had also been checked, and Stuart's division,
occupying the centre and left of our line, detached from Buckner's corps,
had recoiled before the enemy.
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA. 451
About three o'clock in the afternoon, Gen. Longstreet asked Gen
Bragg for some of the troops of the right wing, bnt was informed by him
that tliey had been beaten back so badly that they could be of no service.
Longstreet had but one division that had not been engaged, and hesitated
to venture to put it in, as the distress upon the Confederate right seemed
to be almost as great as that of the enemy upon his right. He therefore
concluded to hold Preston's division for the time, and urge on to renewed
eflbrts the brave men who had already been engaged many honrs. The
enemy had obtained some heights near the Crawfish Spring Eoad, and
strong ground upon which to rally. Here he gathered most of his broken
forces, and reinforced them. After a long and bloody struggle, Johnson
and Hindman gained the heights. Kershaw made a handsome attack upon
the heights, simultaneously with Johnson and Hindman, but was not
strong enough for the work. It was evident that with this position gained
Longstreet .would be complete master of the field. He therefore ordered
Gen. Buckner to move Preston forward. Before this, however. Gen.
Buckner had established a battery of twelve guns, raking down the enemy's
line which opposed our right wing, and at the same time having fine play
upon any force that might attemj)t to reinforce the hill that he was about
to attack. Gen. Stewart, of his corps, was also ordered to move against
any such force in flank. The combination was well-timed and arranged.
Preston dashed gallantly at the hill. Stewart flanked a reinforcing col-
umn, and captured a large portion of it. At the same time, the fire of the
battery struck such terrour into a heavy force close under it, that there
were taken a large number of prisoners. Preston's assault, though not a
complete success at the onset, taken in connection with the other opera-
tions, crippled the enemy so badly that his ranks were badly l)roken, and
by a flank movement and another advance tlie heights were gained. These
reinforcements were the enemy's last or reserve corps, and a part also of
the line that had been opposing our right wing during the morning. The
enemy broke up in great confusion along Longstreet's front, and, about
the same time, the right wing made a gallant dash, and gained tlie line
that had been held so long and obstinately against it. A simultaneous
and continuous shout from the two wings announced our success complete.
The enemy had fought every man that he had, and every one had been in
turn beaten. The day had been certainly saved by Longstreet ; but it is
but justice to add that his masterly manoeuvre was followed up, and com-
pleted by Gen. Polk, and that it was under their combined attack that the
enemy at last gave up the field.
The enemy was totally routed from right, left, and centre, and was in
full retreat to Chattanooga, night alone preventing further pursuit. Poll's
wing captured twenty-eight pieces of artillery, and Longstreet's twenty-
one, making forty-nine pieces of cannon, both wings taking nearly an
4:52 THE LOST CAUSE.
equal number of prisoners, amounting to over eiglit thousand, with fifteen
thousand stand of arms, and forty stands of regimental colours. The
enemy's loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, could not have been less
than twenty thousand. Our own loss was heavy, and was computed by
Gen. Bragg as " two-fifths of his army." The enemy was known to have
had all his available force on the field, including his reserve, with a por-
tion of Burnside's corps, numbering not less than eighty thousand, while
our force was not fifty thousand. Nothing was more brilliant in all of
Napoleon's Italian campaigns. Chickamauga was equally as desperate as
the battle of Areola ; but it was productive of no decisive results, and we
shall see that it was followed, as many another brilliant victory of the
Confederates, by almost immediate consequences of disaster.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
OONFKEKNOE OF GENS. BRAGG AND LONGSTEEET THE DAT AFTER THE BATTLE OF OHICKA-
MAUGA. ā LONGSTREKT's PLAN OF CAMPAIGN NORTH OF THE TENNESSEE RIVER. ā WHY GEN.
BRAGG DECLINED IT. ā HIS INVESTMENT OF CHATTANOOGA. ā HE CUTS OFF THE ENEMY's
SUPPLIES. ā HE HOPES TO STARVE THE GARRISON INTO SURRENDER. REORGANIZATION OP
THE FEDERAL ARMIES IN THE "WEST. ā GEN. GRANt's NEW AND LARGE COMMAND. ā HIS
FIRST TASK TO RELIEVE THOMAS IN CHATTANOOGA. ā HIS SUCCESSFUL LODGMENT ON THE
SOUTH SIDE OF THE TENNESSEE RIVER. ā SURPRISE OF LONGSTREET. ā THE CONFEDERATES
RETREAT TO LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. ā LONGSTREET MAKES A NIGHT ATTACK ON THE ENEMY's
NEW POSITION, BUT IS REPULSED. ā THE ENEMY ACCOMPLISHES THE RELIEF OF CHATTA-
NOOGA. ā DETACHMENT OF LONGSTREET FROM BRAGg's FRONT TO OPERATE AGAINST KNOX-
VILLE. ā THIS UNFORTUNATE MOVEMENT THE WORK OF PRESIDENT DAVIS. ā MILITARY PRAG-
MATISM AND VANITY OF THE CONFEDERATE PRESIDENT. ā GRANT DETERMINES TO TAKE THE
OFFENSIVE. ā THE BATTLE OF MISSIONARY RIDGE. ā EXTRAORDINARY STRENGTH OF THE CON-
FEDERATE POSITION. ā TWO ATTACKS REPULSED. ā GENERAL ADVANCE OF THE FEDERAL
LINES TO THE CREST OF MISSIONARY RIDGE. ā AUDACITY OF THE MOVEMENT. ā BAD CONDUCT
OF THE CONFEDERATE TROOPS. ā A SHAMEFUL PANIC. ā CAUSES OF THE EXTRAORDINARY
MISCONDUCT OF BRAGO's ARMY. ā IT FALLS BACK TO DALTON. ā LONGSTBEEt's EXPEDITION
AGAINST KNOXVILLE. ā HIS PURSUIT OF BURNSIDE. ā HIS UNSUCCESSFUL ASSAULT ON FOKT
SANDERS AT KNOXVILLE. ā HE RETREATS TO EOGERSVILLE, IS CUT OFF FROM VIRGINIA,
AND SPENDS THE WINTER IN NORTH-EASTERN TENNESSEE. ā OPERATIONS IN VIRGINIA IN
THE FALL OF 1863. ā LEE ATTEMPTS TO FLANK MEADE AND GET BETWEEN HIM AND WASH-
INGTON. ā AN EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE OF STUARt's CAVALRY. ā MEADE RETREATS TO
AND BEYOND BULL BUN. ā FAILURE OF LEE's FLANK MOVEMENT, ā INCIDENTS OF SUCCESS
FOR THE CONFEDERATES. ā LEE RETIRES TO THE RAPPAHANNOCK. ā AFFAIR OF RAPPAHAN-
NOCK BRIDGE. ā AFFAIR OF GERMANIA FORD. ā DESULTORY OPERATIONS BETWEEN LEe's
LINES AND EAST TENNESSEE. ā AVEEILl's RAID. ā CLOSE OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1SC3 IN
VIRGINIA.
The morning after the battle of Chickamaiiga, Gen. Bragg stopped at
the bivouac of Longstreet, and asked his views as to future movements.
Sen. Longstreet suggested crossing the river above Chattanooga, so as
to make ourselves sufficiently felt on the enemy's rear, as to force his evacu-
ation of Chattanooga ā indeed, force him back upon Nashville, and, if we
should find our transportation inadequate for a continuance of this move-
454: THE LOST CAUSE.
ment, to follow up the railroad to Knoxville, destroy Burnside, and from
there threaten the enemy's railroad communication in rear of Nashville.
The reasons which induced Gen. Bragg to decline this plan of cam-
paign were detailed in a report to the War Department at Eichmond, in
which he wrote : " The suggestion of a movement by our right, imme-
diately after the battle, to the north of the Tennessee, and thence upon
Nashville, requires notice only because it will find a place on the files of
the Department. Such a movement was utterly impossible for want of
transportation. Nearly half our army consisted of reinforcements just be-
fore the battle, without a wagon or an artillery horse, and nearly, if not
quite, a third of the artillery horses on the field had been lost. The rail-
road bridges, too, had been destroyed to a point south of Ringgold, and on
all the road from Cleveland to Knoxville. To these insurmountable difii-
culties were added the entire absence of means to cross the river, except
by fording at a few precarious points too deep for artillery, and the well-
known danger of sudden rises, by which all communication would be cut
off, a contingency which did actually happen a few days after the visionary
scheme was proposed. But the most serious objection to the proposition
was its entire want of military propriety. It abandoned to the enemy our
entire line of communication, and laid open to him our depots of supplies,
whilst it placed us with a greatly inferiour force beyond a difficult and, at
times, impassable river, in a country affording no subsistence to men or
animals. It also left open to the enemy, at a distance of only ten miles,
our battle-field, with thousands of our wounded and his own and all the
trophies and supplies we had won. All this was to be risked and given
up for what ? To gain the enemy's rear, and cut him off from his depot
of supplies by the route over the mountains, when the very movement
abandoned to his unmolested use the better and more practicable route of
half the length on the south side of the river Our supplies
of all kinds were greatly reduced, the railroad having been constantly oc-
cupied in transporting troops, prisoners, and our wounded, and the bridges
having been destroyed to a point two miles south of Ringgold. These
supplies were ordered to be replenished, and as soon as it was seen that
we could be subsisted, the army was moved forward to seize and hold the
only communication the enemy had with his supplies in the rear. His
important road, and the shortest by half to his depot at Bridgej^ort, lay
along the south bank of the Tennessee. The holding of this all-important
route was confided to Lieut.-Gen. Longstreet's command, and its posses-
sion forced the enemy to a road double the length, over two ranges of
mountains, by wagon transportation. At the same time, our cavalry, in
large force, was thrown across the river to operate on this long and difficult
route. These dispositions, faithfully sustained, ensured the enemy's speedy
evacuation of Chattanooga for want of food and forage. Possessed of the
grant's belief of CnATTANOOGA. 455
Ehortest road his depot and the one bj whicli reinforcements must reach him,
ice held him at our mercy, and his destruction was only a question of time.''''
Tills was a bold statement of Bragg ; but it seemed that for once a least
liis swollen boasts were to be realized, and the enemy at Chattanooga
starved into surrender. Starvation or retreat stared in the ftice of the
Army of the Cumberland ; its supplies liad to be dragged for sixty miles
across the country and over abominable roads ; and even if it ventured on
retreat, it would have to abandon its artillery and most of its materiel. At
this critical period. Gen. Kosecrans was relieved. Gen. Thomas succeeding
him ; and a few days afterwards. Gen. Grant arrived, having been placed
in command of a military division, composed of the departments of the
Ohio, Cumberland, and Tennessee, in which were the armies of Gens.
Burnside, Thomas, and Sherman.
It was the first task of Grant to relieve Thomas in Chattanooga. Rein-
forced by Hooker with two corps, it was decided that this force should cross
the Tennessee River at Bridgeport, making a lodgment on the south side
of it, three miles below where Lookout Mountain abuts on the river ā this
movement being intended to open navigation to the ferry, thus shortening
land transportation, and securing certain supplies to the Federal army.
T'juY thousand men were detailed to execute this movement. Fifty
pontoons, carrying twelve hundred men, were floated on the night of the
26th October down the river, passing three miles in front of Longstreet's
pickets, without drawing their attention. The alarm was not given until
the enemy attempted a landing at the ferry ; and another body of three
thousand Federals, who had marched down to a concealed camp opposite,
being quickly ferried across, the Confederates were forced back and com-
pelled to retreat to Lookout Mountain. In less than forty hours a whole
corps of the enemy was across the river. A portion of this force halted in
a position plainly visible from Lookout Mountain ; and a night attack on
the 29th October was planned upon it by Longstreet, who hoped by a sur-
prise to frustrate the entire movement, and to capture the whole of Hook-
er's wagon train. The attack failed from insufficient force ; it was made
with only six Confederate regiments, and was withdrawn after three hours'
fighting witK considerable loss. Grant's lodgment on the south side of
the Tennessee was now assured ; he was in firm possession of the new lines
of communication ; he had attained all the results he had anticipated ; and
his relief of Chattanooga was now to be taken as an accomplished fact.
But although the Federal army near Chattanooga had now no fears of
starvation or retreat, Grant hesitated to assume the ofi'ensive against the
strong positions in his front. Gen. Sherman had been ordered from the
region of the Mississippi with four divisions ; but before his arrival, Grant
obtained the astounding news that Longstreet, with eleven thousand in-
fantry, had been detached from Bragg's front (although the Confederates
4:56 THE LOST CAUSE.
weie in momentary expectation of battle, already overmatclied by num-
bers, and in the face of an enemy drawing reinforcements from every
quarter), and that this veteran commander, with the best part of the army,
had gone to Knoxville to attack Burnside, and with the visionary project
of regaining East Tennessee, and perhaps through its gateways again pen-
etrating Kentucky, and making the battle-ground of the Confederacy in
this impossible country.
This extraordinary military movement was the work of President
Davis, who seems, indeed, to have had a singular fondness for erratic cam-
paigns. His visits to every battle-field of the Confederacy were ominous.
He disturbed the plans of his generals ; his military conceit led him into
the wildest schemes ; and so much did lie fear that the public would not
ascribe to him the hoped-for results of the visionary project, that his van-
ity invariably divulged it, and successes were foretold in public speeches
with such boastful plainness, as to put the enemy on his guard and inform
him of the general nature of the enterprise. On the 12th October Presi-
dent Davis visited the field of Chickamauga. He planned the expedition
against Knoxville. He was in furious love witb the extraordinary de-
sign, and in a public address to the army he could not resist the tempta-
tion of announcing that " the green fields of Tennessee would shortly again
be theirs."
The announcement of this enterprise alone remained to determine
Grant to attack. Burnside was instructed to lure Longstreet to Knox-
ville, and retire within his fortifications, where he could stand a protracted
siege. Lookout Mountain had been evacuated by the Confederates, and
Bragg had moved his troops up to the top of Missionary Eidge.
THE BATTLE OF MISSIONARY EIDGE. /
On the 25tli November, the enemy prepared for the grand assault,
Sherman's force having come up, and occupied the northern extremity of
Missionary Ridge. Hooker had scaled the rugged height of Lookout
Mountain, and the Federal forces maintained an unbroken line, with 'open
communications, from the north end of this dizzy eminence, through Cheat
Valley, to the north end of Missionary Ridge. There were more than
eighty thousand veteran troops in this formidable line. The Confederate
army, numbering not half so many, had yet a position that sliould have
decided the day. They held the crest of the ridge, from McFarlan's Gap
almost to the mouth of the Chickamauga ; the position was four to six
hundred feet in elevation ; and it had been strengthened by breastworks
wherever the ascent was easy. The position was such that the enemy was
II
BATTLE OF SnSSIONAEY KIDGE. 457
exposed to an artillery fire while in the plain, and to the infantry fire when
he attempted the ascent of the hill or mountain.
The right wing of the Confederates was held by Hardee, with the divi-
sions of Cleburne, Walker, Cheatham, and Stevenson. Breckinridge com-
manded on the left his old division, Stewart's, and part of Buckner's and
Hindman's. The enemy's first assault was made upon Hardee, who re-
pulsed it with great slaughter. The attack was made here by Sherman,
and his bleeding columns staggered on the hill. A second attack on the
Confederate left wing was ordered at noon, and repulsed. It was late in
the afternoon, when, with an audacity wholly unexpected, Grant ordered
a general advance of his lines to the crest of Missionary Ridge. As the
Federal colunms moved up at a rapid rate, in face of the batteries, whose ill-
directed and purposeless fire did not serve to check them, a brigade in the
Confederate centre gave way, and in a few moments, what had been a regular
and vigorous battle, became a disgraceful panic and an unmitigated rout.
JSTever was a victory plucked so easily from a position so strong. Avail-
ing himself of the first gap in the Confederate line, the enemy turned upon
their flanks, and poured into them a terrible enfilading fire, that scattered
them in confusion. The day was sliamefully lost. Gen. Bragg attempted
to rally the broken troops ; he advanced into the fire, and exclaimed,
" Here is your commander," and w^as answered with the derisive shouts of
an absurd catch-phrase in the army, " Here's your mule."
An army notoriously lacking confidence in their commander ; made
weak and suspicious by the detachment from it of Longstreet's veteran
divisions ; and utterly demoralized by one of Bragg's freaks of organiza-
tion before the battle, in shufiling over all the commands, and putting the
men under new oflicers, abandoned positions of great strength ; broke into
K, disorderly retreat from a line which might easily have been held against
twice their numbers ; and gave to the Confederacy what President Davis
nnwilliugly pronounced " the mortification of the first defeat that had re-
fulted from misconduct by the troops."
The consequence of this disaster was that Gen. Bragg left in the hands
of the enemy all of his strong positions on Lookout Mountain, Chattanooga
Valley, and Missionary Ridge, and finally retired with his wdiole army to
a position some twenty or thirty miles to the rear. His army was put in
motion on the road to Ringgold, and thence to Dalton. Grant claimed
as the fruits of his victory seven thousand prisoners, and forty -seven pieces
of artillery.
longstreet's expedition against knoxville.
"We have seen that in the beginning of November Longstreet had been
458 THE LOST CAUSE.
despatclied by Bragg up the valley towards Knoxville, where Burnside
was operating. A part of the army of the latter lay at Loudon, where
Longstreet first struck and drove the enemy, capturing at Lenoir Station
a train of eighty-five wagons, many of them loaded with valuable medical
stores. At Bean Station he captured thirty wagons, a quantity of forage,
and some horses ; and in the Clinch Valley, forty other wagons, laden
with sugar and coffee. Burnside continued to fall back upon Knoxville,
6ut was overtaken at Campbell's Station on the 16th of November. Here
he was severely pressed by Longstreet, who hoped to break the retreat
into a rout. A running fight of two miles ensued, and Burnside reached
Knoxville at daylight the next morning ; Longstreet advancing, and laying
regular siege to the place.
But while he was investing the place, news came of the great disaster
at Missionary Kidge, and Longstreet, well understanding that Grant would
now detach a column to relieve Knoxville, saw the necessity of quick
work, and determined to risk an assault upon the place. On a hill near
the Kingston road was a work, called Fort Sanders, which commanded
the approaches to the town. It was a very strong work, and in front of it
were felled trees, with the tops turning in all directions, and making an
almost impassable mass of brush and timber. A space around the fort was
cleared, and the ditch in front was about ten feet deep, with the parapet
nearly twenty feet high.
In the morning of the 29th November, the assaulting column, consist-
ing of three brigades of McLaw's division, moved up the slope, and was
met by a heavy artillery fire, which fearfullly mowed down the advancing
soldiers. Still onward they pushed, struggling through the network of
fallen timber and other devices laid down to impede them. But, the in-
ti-icate passage by which they had to mount, was too difficult for them
easily to master. The foremost parties stumbled and fell over each other
in confusion ; at the same time the enemy's fire poured fiercer and fiercer
on their heads. The embrasures of the fort, and the whole line of the
parapet blazed forth at once. Nevertheless, this did not effectually stop
the advance. Pushing on over every obstacle, they soon reached within pis-
tol-shot of the fort ; then, suddenly, the enemy's guns launched forth from
every quarter, and the Confederate line was shattered. Some, however,
managed to spring into the ditch, and clamber up the glacis, planting their
flag almost side by side with the Federal colours. They were not sup-
ported, however, by the rest of the charging colunin ; and the attack was
withdrawn after a loss of some seven hundred in killed, wounded, and
prisoners.
Tlie assault having failed, and news of Sherman's approach from Chat-
tanooga reaching him, Longstreet had no other alternative than to raise
the siege, and occupy a new line of operations. He retreated towards Rut-
OPERATIONS IN VIRGINIA. 4i59
ledge up the valley, pursued by the combined forces of Burnside and Sher-
man. On the 13th December, he reached Bean Station, where, being hard
pressed by the enemy, he turned and attacked his advance, driving him
back to Russellville, Having shaken off the enemy here, Longstreet pro-
ceeded to take a position in ISfortheastern Tennessee, establisliing liis head-
quarters at Ilogersville. He had hoped to find his railroad communica-
tions with Virginia opeu ; but at this time Averill's raid had cut the rail-
road, compelling Longstreet to fall back upon his own resources, and com-
pletely isolating him in a wild and difficult country. Tlie weather was
bitterly cold ; the mountains were covered with snow ; more than half of
the men were barefooted ; and tlie cavalry was engaged in daily skir-
mishes with the enemy, while gleaning supplies east of a line drawn from
Cumberland Gap to Cleveland. In February, 1S64, the lines of communi-
cation with Virginia were repaired ; but it was not until tlie rigour of