XI

MISSIONARY RIDGE

Brigadier and inspector general-Sherman arrives-Plan of battle-Details of movements-Claims of Grant and Sherman-Thomas carries Ridge Granger and Sherman sent to Knoxville-Bridging the rivers-Major Hoffman-Longstreet rejoins Lee-Grant goes to Knoxville-Cumberland Gap-Lexington-Establishes winter headquarters at Nashville.

On returning to Chattanooga, November 17, I found my commission as brigadier general and the usual oath was administered by General Grant, but as we were still confronting Bragg, making ready for a decisive battle, I continued to act as inspector general of the military division without any new assignment. But as there was neither necessity nor time for inspections, I lent a hand, as had always been my practice, wherever I saw a chance for service. I was still the only active regular officer on Grant's staff, and being an engineer besides I found plenty to do, carrying orders and assisting Baldy Smith in reconnoitering the country for a suitable crossing of the Tennessee for Sherman's turning movement against the enemy's right flank and rear.

It should be remembered that Sherman marched

from his camp on Black River into Vicksburg whence he took steamboats to Memphis. From there he was transferred to Corinth by rail with instructions to march eastward along the railroad, rebuilding it as he went. In this way it took just two months to transfer his army corps of four divisions from the Big Black to Chattanooga, while it took the War Department less than two weeks to transfer two army corps from Virginia to the same destination.

Great credit has always been accorded Sherman for the rapidity of his transfer, and he doubtless did his part well enough, but in view of the perilous position of the Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga, it must be confessed that it was a great mistake to select that route when another and a far better one was open, namely, that by steamboat to Cairo and by rail from Cairo to Louisville, Nashville, and Bridgeport. It was contended at the time, however, that it would be impracticable to transport and supply the army by the single line of railroad from the Ohio River, but when it is remembered that a few months later it was the sole dependence of a very much larger army, while the line Sherman was rebuilding, skirting the northern border of the Confederacy, was constantly exposed to raids and interruption and was not and could not be used to any extent as a supply line, it will be seen that the time occupied in its repair was time wasted and that Sherman going by the other route should have been on the ground he finally occupied a month to six weeks earlier than he was. The railroad could have been repaired later as it was.

But even after Sherman reached Bridgeport, he was unnecessarily slow in marching to Chattanooga.

Before getting within reach of the enemy his columns were naturally enough badly strung out. He was encumbered by heavy wagon trains, and now that rainy weather had begun to make the roads muddy and there were but few in the country, none parallel-this faulty marching order could hardly be helped as a general arrangement, but it might have been easily remedied for the last day by leaving the wagons in Lookout Valley to follow at leisure while the troops pushed to the front without them. As this was not done, Sherman lost at least two days more in getting into position. To make matters still worse the pontoon bridge at Brown's Ferry broke while he was crossing the river and thus cut off his last division entirely. As everybody else had already reached the place assigned him, within striking distance of the enemy, Sherman's delays gave Grant great annoyance at the time, and had they not been warm friends might have led to sharp criticism and censure. This surely would have been the case had the operations, which were to follow, ended in failure and disappointment. But success wipes out or greatly minimizes individual shortcomings and, as will be shown hereafter, this was the result in Sherman's case.

During my absence at Knoxville all the details for the forthcoming battle had been finally arranged mainly by Generals Smith and Thomas under Grant's personal supervision. The situation was a complicated one. The beleaguered army, reënforced from many directions, now greatly outnumbered Bragg's which had been fatally weakened, first, by the detachment of Longstreet's corps, and afterward by that of Buckner's division. Our center occupied

Chattanooga south of the Tennessee at the entrance of a valley about three miles wide, with Lookout Mountain on one side and Missionary Ridge on the other, but this place had now become an inexpugnable camp surrounded by well-constructed fortifications. It was at last amply supplied from the rear by rail and wagon road, and, although the enemy still had an outlying detachment on Lookout, it was too far from his main body on Missionary Ridge to be a serious menace to Grant's communications or combinations.

Bragg's position was essentially a weak one. His main line held Missionary Ridge about two hundred feet high, fortified by rifle trenches at top and bottom and regarded as secure against direct attack. It covered both the wagon and railroads to the interior of Georgia. Its right rested at the railroad tunnel near the end of Missionary Ridge; its left, held by an outlying detachment, was near Rossville, and the whole was about five miles long with but little more than forty thousand men to defend it.

Grant had within reach nearly twice as many men much better equipped and better supplied in every respect. His plan, stripped of all unnecessary verbiage, was that Sherman should cross from the north to the south side of the Tennessee just below the mouth of Chickamauga Creek by a pontoon bridge, the boats and materials for which Smith had concealed in the North Chickamauga, and after making good his footing, Sherman should drive back or turn the enemy's right, resting near the end of Missionary Ridge. Howard was to advance from Chattanooga, form a junction with Sherman on the south side of the river, and thus strengthen his

movement, while Thomas was to advance to Orchard Knoll and coöperate from there as occasion might require.

Preliminary to all this Hooker was to force his way around the point of Lookout Mountain, followed by Osterhaus, who had been cut off from Sherman, and thus put their combined forces in position to move by the shortest line up the Chattanooga Valley against the enemy's extreme left near Rossville. This was the movement that gave rise to the so-called "Battle above the Clouds" as described by Quartermaster General Meigs, who was at that time exiled from Washington and was visiting at Grant's headquarters. He had never seen a battle, and it so happened that this one, which was merely a sharp skirmish on the nose of the mountain between the rebel detachment and Hooker's advance, did not end till after dark. Seen from Grant's headquarters, below and about two miles away, the flashing of small arms looked like fireflies above a small bank of mist that rested against the mountain side, nowhere more than fifteen hundred feet high. It was picturesque enough while it lasted, but as the rebel detachment on Lookout made but feeble resistance and got out rapidly as soon as it found that the force coming against it was really a formidable one, the affair was altogether insignificant and soon ended. During the night the rebel force made its way around to Missionary Ridge, where it had a much more serious time the next day. So far as the records show, there were at no time more than two thousand men, counting both sides, engaged in this much-exaggerated and misnamed "Battle above the Clouds." It should be noted, however, that Hooker