Chattanooga, General Grant found General Hooker, with all his forces, at Bridgeport, preparing to cross there, and dispute with General Bragg the right to compel our army under Thomas to supply itself with provisions by means of waggon trains dragged round through the mountain passes in Middle Tennessee,-a service in which 10,000 horses were soon used up, while the autumn rains would ere long render the roads so impassable that our army could be supplied but a few days longer.

On the 26th Hooker passed his whole army over the Tennessee at Bridgeport, and on the 28th reached Wauhatchie, a small station on the railroad in Lookout Valley, about twelve miles from Chattanooga,―here threatening General Bragg with a flank attack on his left wing. This movement was made intentionally in full view of the Confederate forces on Racoon and Lookout Mountains, the object being to conceal or divert the enemy's attention from certain corresponding movements to be made by Generals Grant and Thomas from Chattanooga. While General Hooker was moving from Bridgeport up the river, on its south, a division under General Palmer moved down the river, from Chattanooga, on its north side. Both movements being in full view of the enemy, completely diverted his attention from what was being done elsewhere. In the meanwhile, Palmer, having crossed the river, and joined Hooker in his advance to Wauhatchie, 4,000 men under General Smith, chief engineer, 1,800 by boats, and the remainder on the north side of the river, passed down to Brown's Ferry, some three or four miles below Chattanooga. Those on the boats landed on the south side, and seized the hills which overlook the ferry. The remainder, who had marched down to the same point on the north side, were ferried over, and by daylight all the heights which rise from the river on the one side, and from Lookout Valley on the other, were firmly secured. By 10 a.m. an excellent pontoon bridge was completed, and a free communication was opened between Hooker at Wauhatchie and our army at Chattanooga. With Hooker's left resting upon Smith's force and bridge, Palmer being in his rear as a support, a safe waggon route of twenty-eight miles over a good road from Bridge

port was secured for our army supplies, and eight miles by using the river from Bridgeport to Kelly's Ferry. Thus all peril to our army from want of supplies was completely removed, and the defeat of General Bragg, as our army was being so effectively reinforced, was rendered only a question of time.

But one attack was made upon any part of General Hooker's line. This was done by General Law's division of Longstreet's corps, who held Lookout Mountain. General Geary's division, as was judged, lay exposed to surprise by a night attack, which was made at about 1 a.m., Oct. 29th, and that with loud yells and terrible impetuosity, driving in our pickets at a run, and charging Geary's division in front and on both wings. His brave men, however, stood firm, returning as deadly a fire as they received, until Carl Shurz with his division of Howard's corps came rushing from Hooker to their aid. The fight was soon over. One brigade under General Tyndale carried the hill from whence our men were enfiladed on their left, while another brigade under Colonel C. Smith, 73rd Ohio, charged up another very steep hill still farther behind, and carried that at the point of the bayonet, taking some prisoners. The Confederates accordingly fled, leaving 153 dead in Geary's front, and admitting a total loss of 361 men, that of General Hooker being 437 in this affair and since he crossed the Tennessee River,to wit, 76 killed, 339 wounded, and 22 missing. Immediately after this, Racoon Mountain, with all west of Lookout Valley, was wholly cleared of Confederate forces, and all the positions of our entire army were rendered perfectly secure, so obviously secure, that General Bragg made no more efforts to disturb them.

From this time to the 23rd November, when Sherman and his corps had arrived from Vicksburg and Memphis, nothing was done by either of the armies in and about Chattanooga. General Grant was waiting for reinforcements, and General Bragg was in suspense in respect to the question what he should do. Learning, however, that Burnside's forces were in a helpless and exposed condition, in consequence of being separated into small detachments, and scattered, as we have stated, all over East Tennessee,

Grant, at that time, lay an unimpeded march to Atlanta, and that on that march the only army these Confederate States could have raised might have been utterly disorganized and dispersed, and the war brought to a final close, as far as all the Middle States of the Confederacy were concerned, an event which would have speedily terminated the war everywhere. All this might have been done, and all needed aid have been sent to Burnside. Thomas and Hooker united could have crushed Bragg on any field where they might have encountered him. We affirm, without fear of contradiction, that nothing but blank stupidity, or an unaccountable blindness to the most palpable facts, can present the least excuse for the neglect of the golden opportunity of a most effective pursuit then presented.

Let us now consider the case of Sherman and Burnside at the time of Longstreet's retreat from Knoxville. The united forces of these two Generals outnumbered those of their antagonist, nearly or quite, by two to one. The forces of Burnside east of Knoxville could have been so concentrated in Longstreet's front as to have most materially retarded his retreat, while Sherman and Burnside might have fallen upon his rear and perfectly crushed him. Longstreet's corps never ought, but as paroled prisoners of war, to have seen Virginia again.

What was done under the circumstances? No pursuit whatever, either of Bragg or Longstreet, was attempted, that of Hooker to Ringgold excepted. On the other hand, as soon as Burnside was relieved, Sherman marched back to Chattanooga, and an army of 100,000 men lay idle there until the opening of the next spring campaign, while the Confederate armies moved off at their leisure, and as a recuperated and reorganized force met us upon the deadly field the next year. It took General Sherman from three to four months, the next year, to move from Chattanooga to Atlanta, a distance of 138 miles; and on his bloody march he lost from 50,000 to 60,000 brave men. In less than three or four weeks, General Grant might have followed General Bragg over the same road, and not have lost 10,000 men on the march, and would have annihilated the power of the Confederacy while on the way. To reap

the advantages of victory, however, was not the policy of this war. The non-pursuit, of Longstreet on the one hand, and of Bragg on the other, and the repose of our army for quite five months at Chattanooga, would have been in accordance with the conduct of Wellington and Blucher, had they rested at Waterloo for five months after the defeat of the French army on that fieid.

CHAPTER XXII.

MINOR CAMPAIGNS DURING THIS WAR.

THE Whole science of war, according to the elder Napoleon, consists in this, in knowing how to be strongest at the point where the main issue lies. No more important utterance relatively to this science was ever given forth. The immutable condition of knowing how to be strongest at the point referred to, is a prior knowledge of what the main issue is, and where it lies. Here we have the peculiarity which distinguishes great commanders from those of an inferior order. The former intuitively apprehend what the main issue is, where it lies, what combination of forces is requisite to settle that issue, and then determine their arrangements and movements in fixed subordination to the one end under consideration. The latter either mistake the real issue or confound the main with the minor ones, and hence do little or nothing effective. Blucher, for example, saw clearly that the issue of the campaign in Belgium did not lie between Thielman and Grouchy at Wavre, but between Wellington and Buonaparte at Waterloo. Hence the great Prussian commander did not turn back upon Grouchy, but precipitated his main army upon Buonaparte. When Lord Cornwallis concentrated his forces and fortified himself at Yorktown, Washington saw at once that the whole issue of the war lay at that one point, and with that one commander. Cornwallis was accordingly captured, and peace followed, and the independence of the United States was acknowledged. After the War of the Rebellion assumed a definite form, we contended, and in all our communications with the leading minds in Washington so affirmed, that that war had, in reality, but two