as the Lookout range.
The gorge of the Tennessee where it breaks through these mountain ranges is so narrow and so thoroughly commanded from the heights on both sides as to render it impracticable to so move an army as to attack it from the front or river side.
With these giant obstacles to the progress of his columns, most serious even if they had been within the Union lines, but almost insuperable when found in an enemy's territory, and while he was bending every energy to complete preparations for carrying out a brilliant plan of his own for overcoming them, General Rosecrans was astonished at receiving on August 4, only ten days after his railroad had been repaired to the Tennessee River, a dispatch from Halleck saying: "Your forces must move forward without delay. You will daily report the movement of each corps till you cross the Tennessee River."
To a commander who was building boats, opening mountain roads, rushing the accumulation of stores, getting out material for four thousand feet of bridges, preparing to leave his base carrying provisions for twenty-five days, and ammunition for two battles, and crossing three mountain ranges and a deep and broad river, in an enemy's country, and in the face of an army, this dispatch was not only astounding, but discouraging and exasperating to the last degree.
It had become a habit at Washington to sneer at the slowness of General Rosecrans, as it was later to denounce General Thomas in similar terms at Nashville. There was no more reason or justice in the one case than in the other. The verdict of history has been reached in the case of General Thomas. It is sure to come, and to be the same in this matter, for Rosecrans.
To this dispatch, which can only be excused on the ground of wholly inexcusable ignorance of the active preparations in progress and the natural difficulties of an advance, General Rosecrans replied with his accustomed clearness and spirit: "Your dispatch ordering me to move forward without delay, reporting the movements of each corps till I cross the Tennessee, is received. As I have determined to cross the river as soon as practicable, and have been making all preparations and getting such information as may enable me to do so without being driven back, like Hooker, I wish to know if your order is intended to take away my discretion as to the time and manner of moving my troops." To this Halleck responded: "The orders for the advance of your army, and that it be reported daily, are peremptory." General Rosecrans immediately wrote the following reply, and, calling his corps commanders together, read the dispatches given above. There was no dissent from the proposition that at that stage of their preparations it was impossible to move. He then read his reply as follows, and all approved and agreed that they should support him:
"General Halleck: My arrangements for beginning a continuous movement will be completed and the execution begun Monday next. We have information to show that crossing the Tennessee between Bridgeport and Chattanooga is impracticable, but not enough to show whether we had better cross above Chattanooga and strike Cleveland, or below Bridgeport and strike in their rear. The preliminary movement of troops for the two cases are very different. It is necessary to have our means of crossing the river completed, and our supplies provided to cross sixty miles of mountains and sustain ourselves during the operations of crossing and fighting, before we move. To obey your order literally would be to push our troops into the mountains on narrow and difficult roads, destitute of pasture and forage, and short of water, where they would not be able to maneuver as exigencies may demand, and would certainly cause ultimate delay and probable disaster. If, therefore, the movement which I propose cannot be regarded as obedience to your order, I respectfully request a modification of it or to be relieved from the command."
On the following day Halleck replied as follows:
"I have communicated to you the wishes of the Government in plain and unequivocal terms. The objective has been stated, and you have been directed to lose no time in reaching it. The means you are to employ and the roads you are to follow are left to your own discretion. If you wish to promptly carry out the wishes of the Government you will not stop to discuss mere details. In such matters I do not interfere."
This was answered the same day by General Rosecrans as follows:
"Your dispatch received. I can only repeat the assurance given before the issuance of the order. This army shall move with all dispatch compatible with the successful execution of our work. We are pressing everything to bring up forage for our animals. The present rolling-stock of the road will barely suffice to keep us day by day here, but I have bought fifty more freight cars, which are arriving. Will advise you daily."
This was the last of interference from Washington, but, accustomed as all there were to interfering at will, and directing affairs according to the situation as they saw it, they could not brook such manifestly proper independence as was shown by Rosecrans, and from that time forward there was needed only an excuse to insure his removal.
Had there been a tithe of the attention given to preventing the rebels from concentrating on his front from every part of the Confederacy – in fact, bringing Longstreet's veterans from the lines under Halleck's own eyes – that there was to the kind of interference which has been noticed, Bragg would have been destroyed in front of Chattanooga. But this subject properly belongs in a succeeding letter. The dispatches given above are well known, but their reproduction will prove a convenience to readers who may not carry their exact terms in mind.
Ten days later, namely, on August 14, the movement to secure Chattanooga began. A glance at the map will reveal its strategy.
Rosecrans had decided to cross the Tennessee in the vicinity of Bridgeport, and subsequently the Raccoon and Lookout Mountain ranges at points south of Chattanooga, and thus compel Bragg to evacuate the place or to come out of it and fight for his line of communications. It is easily seen that if after crossing the river the enemy, warned in time, should be found in force on the western slopes of these ranges further progress in that direction would have been impossible, and a return to the north bank of the river obligatory. It was, therefore, necessary to wholly deceive Bragg as to the points of crossing.
Burnside was marching from Kentucky into East Tennessee. Any apparent movement of the Army of the Cumberland in force in that direction would naturally lead Bragg to believe that a junction of the Union forces was contemplated on his right.
Everything being ready, Crittenden opened the campaign with the Twenty-first Corps. Leaving his camps at Hillsboro, Manchester, and McMinnville on the 16th of August, he crossed the Cumberland Mountains and occupied the Sequachee Valley from a point between Jasper and Dunlap to Pikeville. Van Cleve held the latter place, Palmer was established at Dunlap, and Wood at Anderson, between Dunlap and Jasper. All built extensive camp fires and moved about in such ways as to convey to observers from the heights the impression that the whole army was moving. Meantime Minty's active cavalry had moved through Sparta and driven Dibrell's cavalry eastward through Crossville, on to the Tennessee, and over it, and Dibrell, having come to reconnoiter and see what was going on, naturally got the idea that Rosecrans's army was coming. The crossing of the Cumberland was but the first step of the imposing diversion. Though the mountain roads were few and very difficult, Crittenden's movements over them had been completed exactly on time. The advance over Walden's Ridge, equally difficult, though it was not quite as high as the main range, was immediately undertaken. Minty, on the extreme left, appeared on the Tennessee more than thirty miles above Blythe's Ferry, where he made most energetic commotion. Hazen reached the river in the vicinity of Dallas. Two brigades were strung out along the edge of the cliffs on the top of Walden's Ridge, where they overlooked Blythe's Ferry, and could be seen from the other side of the river. Minty, with his troopers, swept down the valley of the Tennessee to near Chattanooga. Wilder and Wagner also appeared in the valley. While a show of building boats was made in the small streams about Blythe's Ferry, Wilder from the heights of Walden's Ridge, opposite Chattanooga, opened fire on the town with artillery. Bragg was thoroughly deceived. Forrest was ordered far up the Tennessee to Kingston to watch for the expected crossing. Buckner was ordered from East Tennessee toward Blythe's Ferry.
As may be supposed,
