CHAPTER XVI. THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA. A DDITIONAL differences arose between the general policy, that controlled the movements of the army, Garfield heartily sympathised. He had, in fact, given shape to that policy. But he deplored his chief's testy manner of defending himself from the complaints of the War Department, and did his best to soften the asperities of the correspondence. The summer was almost gone; and the coming autumn was ripe with promises of immediate results. The air was full of rumors of approaching conflicts; and the North waited the echo from the battle-ficld. August 5th, General Halleck telegraphed Rosecrans peremptory orders to move. Rosecrans quietly waited, till the dispositions along his extended lines were completed, and till stores were accumulated and the corn was ripened, so that his horses could be made to live off the country. On the 15th he was ready. The problem now before him was to cross the Tennessee River, and gain possession of Chattanooga (the key to the entire mountain-ranges of East Tennessee and Northern Georgia) in the face of an enemy of equal strength. Two courses were open. Forcing a passage over the river above Chattanooga, he might essay a direct attack upon the town. If not repulsed in the dangerous preliminary movements, he would still have upon his hands a siege, not less formidable than that of Vicksburg, with difficulties incomparably REDOUBT ON LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, OPPOSITE CHATTANOOGA. greater in maintaining his supplies. Or he might convince the enemy, that he had adopted this plan; but crossing below, he might hasten Southward over the most rugged roads, and seize the mountaingaps, whence he could debouch upon the enemy's line of supplies. More briefly, he might either attempt to drive the enemy out of Chattanooga, or outflank him. He chose the latter alternative. By the 28th the singular activity of the National forces along a front of one hundred and fifty miles OPERATIONS AT CHATTANOOGA. 231 had blinded and bewildered Bragg as to his antagonist's actual intentions. Four brigades suddenly began demonstrating furiously against the enemy's lines above Chattanooga; and the plan was supposed to be revealed. Rosecrans must be attempting to force a passage there; and straightway a concentration to oppose him was ordered. Meanwhile, bridges, secretly prepared, were hastily built thirty miles further down the river at different points; and before Bragg had prepared to resist a crossing above, Rosecrans, handling with rare skill his various corps and divisions, had securely planted his army south of the Tennessee; and, cutting completely loose from his base of supplies, was already pushing southward, admirably protecting his flank next the enemy by the impassable mountains. For Bragg but one thing was at all feasible. As he had been forced out of Shelbyville, Wartrace, and Tullahoma, so he was obliged to abandon a still stronger position. In all haste he evacuated Chattanooga, allowing the nearest corps of Rosecrans' army to take possession of it quietly. The very ease of this occupation proved its strongest element of danger; for men, seeing the objective point in the campaign in their hands, forgot the columns toiling through the mountains away to the southward, whose mere presence there compelled the rebel evacuation. But for them, the isolated troops at Chattanooga would have been over 232 whelmed. Thenceforward there was need of still greater generalship to reunite the scattered corps. They could not return by the way they had come; for, if they began such a movement, Bragg, holding a shorter line, and already re-inforced by Longstreet's veteran corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, could sweep back over the route of his late retreat. Plainly, they must pass through the gaps, and place themselves between Bragg and Chattanooga, before the stronghold, a mere tentative possession, could be securely held. It therefore happened, that the bloody battle of Chickamauga was fought, to enable the Federal army to concentrate one of its corps in the position, which had already been occupied for days without firing a shot, and with hardly the sight of an armed foe. Unfortunately, the concentration was not speedy enough. Indeed, there are some plausible reasons for believing that Rosecrans, after his easy success, was, perhaps for a few days, deceived by the belief, that Bragg was still in full retreat. Certainly the General-in-chief and the War Department did all they could to encourage such an idea. Even after Rosecrans, straining every nerve to concentrate his corps, was striving to prepare for the onset of the re-inforced rebel army, General Halleck informed him of reports, that Bragg's army was re-inforcing Lee; and pleasantly added, that, after he had occupied Dalton, it would be |