CHAPTER XXVII

GRANT IN COMMAND--ROSECRANS RELIEVED

Importance of unity in command--Inevitable difficulties in a double
organization--Burnside's problem different from that of
Rosecrans--Cooperation necessarily imperfect--Growth of Grant's
reputation--Solid grounds of it--Special orders sent him--Voyage to
Cairo--Meets Stanton at Louisville--Division of the Mississippi
created--It included Burnside's and Rosecrans's
departments--Alternate forms in regard to Rosecrans--He is
relieved--Thomas succeeds him--Grant's relations to the change--His
intellectual methods--Taciturnity--Patience--Discussions in his
presence--Clear judgments--His "good anecdote"--Rosecrans sends
Garfield to Washington--Congressman or General--Duplication of
offices--Interview between Garfield and Stanton--Dana's
dispatches--Garfield's visit to me--Description of the rout of
Rosecrans's right wing--Effect on the general--Retreat to
Chattanooga--Lookout Mountain abandoned--The President's
problem--Dana's light upon it--Stanton's use of it--Grant's
acquiescence--Subsequent relations of Garfield and
Rosecrans--Improving the "cracker line"--Opening the
Tennessee--Combat at Wauhatchie.

It is very evident that, at the close of September, Mr. Lincoln and
Mr. Stanton had become satisfied that a radical change must be made
in the organization of the Western armies. The plan of sending
separate armies to co-operate, as Rosecrans's and Burnside's had
been expected to do, was in itself vicious. It is, after a fashion,
an attempt of two to ride a horse without one of them riding behind.
Each will form a plan for his own army, as indeed he ought to do,
and when one of them thinks the time has come for help from the
other, that other may be out of reach or committed to operations
which cannot readily be dropped. It is almost axiomatic that in any
one theatre of operations there must be one head to direct.
[Footnote: Napoleon used to ridicule the vicious practice of
subdividing armies in the same theatre of war. He called it putting
them up in small parcels, "_des petits paquets_." Memoirs of Gouvion
St.-Cyr, vol. iv.] In the present case it ought to have been evident
to the authorities at Washington that as soon as Burnside occupied
East Tennessee, both distance and the peculiar conditions of his
problem would forbid any efficient cooperation with Rosecrans. The
latter was the junior in rank, and knew that, whatever might be
Burnside's generosity, there were many possible contingencies in
such a campaign in which the War Department might find it the easy
solution of a difficulty to direct the senior officer to assume the
command of both armies. So long as matters went well, Rosecrans had
little or no communication with Burnside; but as soon as the enemy
began to show a bold front, he became impatient for assistance. The
perplexities of his own situation made him blind to those of
Burnside. This is human nature, and was, no doubt, true of both in
varying degrees. Halleck, at Washington, was in no true sense a
commander of the armies. He had given peremptory orders to advance
in June and again in July, but when asked whether this relieved the
subordinate of responsibility and took away his discretion, could
make no distinct answer. The unpleasant relations thus created
necessarily affected the whole campaign. Halleck hesitated to advise
a halt when he learned that Longstreet had gone to reinforce Bragg,
and Rosecrans dreaded the blame of halting without such suggestion.
So the battle had to be fought, and the ill consequences had to be
repaired afterward as best they could.

The official correspondence of the summer shows a constantly growing
faith in Grant. His great success at Vicksburg gave him fame and
prestige, but there was beside this a specific effect produced on
the President and the War Department by his unceasing activity, his
unflagging zeal, his undismayed courage. He was as little inclined
to stop as they at Washington were inclined to have him. He was as
ready to move as they were to ask it, and anticipated their wish. He
took what was given him and did the best he could with it. The
result was that the tone adopted toward him was very different from
that used with any other commander. It was confidently assumed that
he was doing all that was possible, and there was no disposition to
worry him with suggestions or orders.

When the operations in the Mississippi valley were reduced to
secondary importance by the surrender of Vicksburg, it was certain
that Grant would be called to conduct one of the great armies which
must still make war upon the rebellion. In a visit to New Orleans to
consult with Banks, he had been lamed by a fractious horse and was
disabled for some days. As soon as he was able to ride in an
ambulance he was on duty, and was assured by General Halleck that
plenty of work would be cut out for him as soon as he was fully
recovered. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. iv. p. 274.]
At the beginning of October he was ordered to take steamboat and go
to Cairo, where he would find special instructions. This dispatch
reached him on the 9th, and the same day he sailed for Cairo,
arriving there on the 16th, when he learned that an officer of the
War Department would meet him at Louisville. Hastening to Louisville
by rail, he met Mr. Stanton himself, who had travelled _incognito_
from Washington. The Secretary of War produced the formal orders
which had been drawn at the War Department creating the Division of
the Mississippi, which included Rosecrans's, Burnside's, and his own
departments, and put him in supreme command of all. [Footnote:
_Id_., p. 404.] The order was drawn in two forms, one relieving
Rosecrans and putting Thomas in command of the Department of the
Cumberland, and the other omitting this. After consultation with Mr.
Stanton, the order relieving Rosecrans was issued and Grant
published his own assumption of command. His staff had accompanied
him, on a hint contained in an earlier dispatch, and after a day
spent with the Secretary of War (October 18-19) he immediately
proceeded to Chattanooga. He was hardly able to mount a horse, and
when on foot had to get about on crutches.

It has been commonly assumed that the choice whether he would remove
Rosecrans was submitted to Grant as a personal question affecting
his relations with his subordinates, and that he decided it on the
ground of his dislike of Rosecrans. The records of the official
correspondence seem to me to show the fact rather to be that
Rosecrans's removal was thought best by the Secretary, the doubt
being whether Grant would prefer to retain him instead of meeting
the embarrassments incident to so important a change in the
organization of the beleaguered army. Grant was always disposed to
work with the tools he had, and through his whole military career
showed himself averse to meddling much with the organization of his
army. He had strong likes and dislikes, but was very reticent of his
expression of them. He would quietly take advantage of vacancies or
of circumstances to put men where he wanted them, but very rarely
made sweeping reorganization. If any one crossed him or became
antagonistic without open insubordination, he would bear with it
till an opportunity came to get rid of the offender. He hated verbal
quarrelling, never used violent language, but formed his judgments
and bided his time for acting on them. This sometimes looked like a
lack of frankness, and there were times when a warm but honest
altercation would have cleared the air and removed
misunderstandings. It was really due to a sort of shyness which was
curiously blended with remarkable faith in himself. From behind his
wall of taciturnity he was on the alert to see what was within
sight, and to form opinions of men and things that rooted fast and
became part of his mental constitution. He sometimes unbent and
would talk with apparent freedom and ease; but, so far as I
observed, it was in the way of narrative or anecdote, and almost
never in the form of discussion or comparison of views. It used to
be said that during the Vicksburg campaign he liked to have Sherman
and McPherson meet at his tent, and would manage to set them to
discussing the military situation. Sherman would be brilliant and
trenchant; McPherson would be politely critical and intellectual;
Rawlins would break in occasionally with some blunt and vigorous
opinion of his own: Grant sat impassable and dumb in his camp-chair,
smoking; but the lively discussion stimulated his strong
commonsense, and gave him more assured confidence in the judgments
and conclusions he reached. He sometimes enjoyed with a spice of
real humor the mistaken assumption of fluent men that reticent ones
lack brains. I will venture to illustrate it by an anecdote of a
date subsequent to the war. One day during his presidency, he came
into the room where his cabinet was assembling, quietly laughing to
himself. "I have just read," said he, "one of the best anecdotes I
have ever met. It was that John Adams after he had been President
was one day taking a party out to dinner, at his home in Quincy,
when one of his guests noticed a portrait over the door and said,
'You have a fine portrait of Washington there, Mr. Adams!' 'Yes,'
was the reply, 'and that old wooden head made his fortune by keeping
his mouth shut;'" and Grant laughed again with uncommon enjoyment.
The apocryphal story gained a permanent interest in Grant's mouth,
for though he showed no consciousness that it could have any
application to himself, he evidently thought that keeping the mouth
shut was not enough in itself to ensure fortune, and at any rate was
not displeased at finding such a ground of sympathy with the Father
of his country. Grant's telling the story seemed to me, under the
circumstances, infinitely more amusing than the original.

During the month which followed the battle of Chickamauga, Rosecrans
had elaborated his report of the campaign. On the 15th of October he
ordered General Garfield to proceed to Washington with it and to
explain personally to the Secretary of the War and the
General-in-Chief the details of the actual condition of the army,
its lines of communication, the scarcity of supplies and especially
of forage for horses and mules, with all other matters which would
assist the War Department in fully appreciating the situation.
Garfield's term as member of Congress began with the 4th of March
preceding, but the active session would only commence on the first
Monday of December. There was some doubt as to the status of army
officers who were elected to Congress. General Frank P. Blair had
been elected as well as Garfield, and it was in Blair's case that
the issue was made by those who objected to the legality of what
they called a duplication of offices. Later in the session of
Congress it was settled that the two commissions were incompatible,
and that one must choose between them. Blair resigned his seat at
Washington and returned to Sherman's army. Garfield, who had found
camp life a cause of oft-recurring and severe disease of his
digestive system, resigned his army commission and retained his
place in Congress. When he left Rosecrans, however, he was still
hopeful that the two duties might be found consistent, and looked
forward to further military employment.

On his way to Nashville, Garfield made a careful inspection of the
road to Jasper and Bridgeport, and reported it with recommendations
for the improvement of the transportation service. He arrived at
Nashville on the 19th of October, and was met by the rumor that the
Secretary of War and General Grant were at Louisville, and that
Grant would come down the road by special train next day. He
telegraphed the news to Rosecrans with the significant question,
What does it mean? Rosecrans knew what it meant, for Grant's order
assuming command and relieving him had been earlier telegraphed to
him, and he had already penned his dignified and appropriate
farewell order to the Army of the Cumberland.

Mr. Stanton awaited Garfield's coming at Louisville, and there was a
full and frank interview between them. The order relieving Rosecrans
ended Garfield's official connection with him, and, even if it had
not been so, it would have been his duty to make no concealments in
answering the earnest and eager cross-questioning of the Secretary.
Mr. Stanton had not only had dispatches full of information from
General Meigs, who now also met him at Louisville, but his
assistant, Mr. Charles A. Dana, had gone early to Chattanooga, had
been present at the battle of Chickamauga, and had there some
perilous experiences of his own. Dana was still with Rosecrans, and
had sent to the Secretary a series of cipher dispatches giving a
vivid interior view of affairs and of men. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xxx. pt. i. pp. 220, etc.; vol. xxxi. pt. i. pp.
69-74, 265; pt. ii. pp. 52-70.] The talented journalist had known
how to give his communications the most lively effect, and they had
great weight with the Secretary. They were not always quite just,
for they were written at speed under the spell of first impressions,
and necessarily under the influence of army acquaintances in whom he
had confidence. There is, however, no evidence that he was
predisposed to judge harshly of Rosecrans, and the unfavorable
conclusions he reached were echoed in Mr. Stanton's words and acts.
[Footnote: Since this was written Mr. Dana has published his
Recollections, based on his dispatches, but the omissions make it
still important to read the originals.] The Secretary of War was
consequently prepared to show such knowledge of the battle of
Chickamauga and the events which followed it, that it would be
impossible for Garfield to avoid mention of incidents which bore
unfavorably upon Rosecrans. He might have been silent if Mr. Stanton
had not known so well how to question him, but when he found how
full the information of the Secretary was, his duty as a military
subordinate coincided with his duty as a responsible member of
Congress, and he discussed without reserve the battle and its
results. Mr. Stanton also questioned General Steedman, who was on
his way home, and wrote to his assistant in Washington for the
information of the President, that his interview with these officers
more than confirmed the worst that had reached him from other
sources as to the conduct of Rosecrans, and the strongest things he
had heard of the credit due to Thomas. [Footnote: Official Records,
vol. xxxi. pt. i. p. 684.]

Garfield came from Louisville to Cincinnati, where I was on duty at
headquarters of my district, and found me, as may easily be
believed, full of intense interest in the campaign. I had been kept
informed of all that directly affected Burnside, my immediate chief,
but my old acquaintance with Rosecrans and sincere personal regard
for him made me desire much more complete information touching his
campaign than was given the public. Garfield's own relations to it
were hardly less interesting to me, and our intimacy was such that
our thoughts at that time were common property. He spent a day with
me, and we talked far into the night, going over the chief points of
the campaign and his interview with Mr. Stanton. His friendship for
Rosecrans amounted to warm affection and very strong personal
liking. Yet I found he had reached the same judgment of his mental
qualities and his capacity as a commander which I had formed at an
earlier day. Rosecrans's perceptions were acute and often
intuitively clear. His fertility was great. He lacked poise,
however, and the steadiness of will necessary to handle great
affairs successfully. Then there was the fatal defect of the
liability to be swept away by excitement and to lose all efficient
control of himself and of others in the very crisis when complete
self-possession is the essential quality of a great general.

We sat alone in my room, face to face, at midnight, as Garfield
described to me the scene on the 20th of September on the
battlefield, when through the gap in the line made by the withdrawal
of Wood's division the Confederates poured. He pictured the
astonishment of all who witnessed it, the doubt as to the evidence
of their own senses; the effort of Sheridan further to the right to
change front and strike the enemy in flank; the hesitation of the
men; the wavering and then the breaking of the right wing into a
panic-stricken rout, each man running for life to the Dry Valley
road, thinking only how he might reach Chattanooga before the enemy
should overtake him, officers and men swept along in that most
hopeless of mobs, a disorganized army. He described the effort of
Rosecrans and the staff to rally the fugitives and to bring a
battery into action, under a shower of flying bullets and crashing
shells. It failed, for men were as deaf to reason in their mad panic
as would be a drove of stampeded cattle. What was needed was a fresh
and well-organized division to cover the rout, to hold back the
enemy, and to give time for rallying the fugitives. But no such
division was at hand, and the rush to the rear could not be stayed.
The enemy was already between the headquarters group and Brannan's
division which Wood had joined, and these, throwing back the right
flank, were presenting a new front toward the west, where
Longstreet, preventing his men from pursuing too far, turned his
energies to the effort to break the curved line of which Thomas at
the Snodgrass house was the centre.

The staff and orderlies gathered about Rosecrans and tried to make
their way out of the press. With the conviction that nothing more
could be done, mental and physical weakness seemed to overcome the
general. He rode silently along, abstracted, as if he neither saw
nor heard. Garfield went to him and suggested that he be allowed to
try to make his way by Rossville to Thomas, the sound of whose
battle seemed to indicate that he was not yet broken. Rosecrans
assented listlessly and mechanically. As Garfield told it to me, he
leaned forward, bringing his excited face close to mine, and his
hand came heavily down upon my knee as in whispered tones he
described the collapse of nerve and of will that had befallen his
chief. The words burned themselves into my memory.

Garfield called for volunteers to accompany him, but only a single
orderly with his personal aide-de-camp followed him; and he made his
way to the right, passed through the gap at Rossville, saw Granger,
who was preparing to move Steedman's division to the front, and rode
on to join Thomas, running the gantlet of the enemy's fire as he
passed near them on the Kelley farm. He never tired of telling of
the calm and quiet heroism of Thomas, holding his position on the
horse-shoe ridge till night put an end to the fighting, and then
retiring in perfect order to the Rossville Gap, to which he was
ordered. This part of the story has been made familiar to all. An
eyewitness has told how, when Rosecrans reached Chattanooga, he had
to be helped from his horse. His nerves were exhausted by the strain
he had undergone, and only gradually recovered from the shock.
[Footnote: Cist, The Army of the Cumberland, p. 226.] His first
dispatch to Washington was the announcement that his army had met
with a serious disaster, the extent of which he could not himself
tell. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. i. p. 142.] The
most alarming feature of the news was that he was himself a dozen
miles from the battlefield and had evidently lost all control of
events. The truth turned out to be that two divisions would include
all the troops that were broken,--namely, Sheridan's, two brigades
of Davis's, and one of Van Cleve's,--whilst seven other divisions
stood firm and Thomas assumed command of them. As these retired in
order, and as the enemy had suffered more in killed and wounded than
our army, Bragg was entitled to claim a victory only because the
field was left in his hands with large numbers of wounded and
numerous trophies of cannon. It was then claimed by some of our best
officers, and is still an open question whether, if Rosecrans had
been with Thomas and, calling to him Granger's troops, had resumed
the offensive, the chances were not in our favor, and whether Bragg
might not have been the one to retreat.

Unfortunately there was no doubt that the general was defeated,
whether his army was or not. The most cursory study of the map
showed that the only practicable road by which the army could be
supplied was along the river from Bridgeport. Lookout Mountain
commanded this; and not to hold Lookout was practically to announce
a purpose to retreat into middle Tennessee. Dana informed the
Secretary of War that Garfield and Granger had urged Rosecrans to
hold the mountain, but that he would not listen to it. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. i. p. 215.] He could much better
afford to intrench a division there than Bragg could, for the
Confederates were tied to Mission Ridge by the necessity of covering
the Atlanta Railroad, which was their line of supply, and any troops
put across the Chattanooga valley were in the air and likely to be
cut off if the long and thin line which connected them were broken.
Had Lookout Mountain been held, Hooker could have come at once into
his place in line when he reached the Tennessee, and the reinforced
army would have been ready, as soon as it was rested and supplied,
to resume an offensive campaign. Instead of this, the country was
for a month tortured with the apprehension that the Army of the
Cumberland must retreat because it could not be fed by means of the
mountain road over Walden's Ridge. After the fortifications at
Chattanooga were strong enough to put the place beyond danger from
direct assault, it would only be adding to the danger of starvation
to send more men there before a better line of supply was opened.

The problem which the President and Secretary of War pondered most
anxiously was the capacity and fitness of Rosecrans to conduct the
new campaign. Would he rise energetically to the height of the great
task, or would he sink into the paralysis of will which so long
followed the battle of Stone's River? Dana's dispatches were studied
for the light they threw on this question more than for all the
other interesting details they contained. For the first three or
four days, they teemed with impressions of the battle itself and the
cause of the disaster to the right wing. Then came the assurance
that Chattanooga was safe and could withstand a regular siege. Next,
in logical order as in time, was the attempt to look into the future
and to estimate the commander by the way he grappled with the
difficulties of the situation. On the 27th of September Dana
discussed at some length the army feeling toward the corps and
division commanders who had been involved in the rout, and the
embarrassment of Rosecrans in dealing with the subject. "The defects
of his character," he wrote, "complicate the difficulty. He abounds
in friendliness and approbativeness, and is greatly lacking in
firmness and steadiness of will. He is a temporizing man, dreads so
heavy an alternative as is now presented." [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xxx. pt. i p. 202.] On the 12th of October he returned
to the subject of Rosecrans's characteristics, mentioning his
refusal to listen to the urgent reasons why he should hold Lookout
Mountain to protect his supply line. "Rosecrans," he said, "who is
sometimes as obstinate and inaccessible to reason as at others he is
irresolute, vacillating, and inconclusive, rejected all their
arguments, and the mountain was given up." [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xxx. pt. i. p. 215.] Picturing the starvation of the
horses and mules and the danger of it for the soldiers, he added:
"In the midst of this the commanding general devotes that part of
the time which is not employed in pleasant gossip, to the
composition of a long report to prove that the government is to
blame for his failure. It is my duty to declare that while few
persons exhibit more estimable social qualities, I have never seen a
public man possessing talent with less administrative power, less
clearness and steadiness in difficulty, and greater practical
incapacity than General Rosecrans. He has inventive fertility and
knowledge, but he has no strength of will and no concentration of
purpose. His mind scatters. There is no system in the use of his
busy days and restless nights, no courage against individuals in his
composition, and with great love of command he is a feeble
commander." [Footnote: _Ibid_.]

It needs no proof that such a report would have great influence at
Washington, and if it at all harmonized with the drift of
impressions caused by the inaction and the wrangling of the summer,
it would be decisive. It was with it in his pocket that Mr. Stanton
had cross-questioned Garfield, and drew out answers which, as he
said, corroborated it. The same correspondence had set forth the
universal faith in Thomas's imperturbable steadiness and courage,
and the admiring faith in him which had possessed the whole army.
The natural and the almost necessary outcome of it all was that
Thomas should be placed in command of the Department and Army of the
Cumberland, and Grant in supreme control of the active operations in
the whole valley of the Mississippi. As to Rosecrans's removal,
Grant did not bring it about, he only acquiesced in it; willingly,
no doubt, but without initiative or suggestion on his part.
[Footnote: Grant's Personal Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 18.]

It may be well here to say a word upon the subsequent relations of
Garfield and Rosecrans. In the next winter a joint resolution was
offered in Congress thanking General Thomas and the officers and men
under his command for their conduct in the battle of Chickamauga.
The established etiquette in such matters is to name the general
commanding the army, whose services are recognized, and not his
subordinates; these are included in the phrase, "officers and men
under his command." To omit Rosecrans's name and to substitute
Thomas's was equivalent to a public condemnation of the former.
Garfield had been promoted to be major-general for his conduct in
the battle, and it was popularly understood that this meant his
special act in volunteering to make his way to Thomas after
Rosecrans and the staff were swept along the Dry Valley road in the
rout. The promotion was recognized as a censure by implication on
his chief. As Garfield was now chairman of the committee of the
House of Representatives on military affairs, he was placed in a
peculiarly embarrassing position. His sincere liking for Rosecrans
made him wish to spare him the humiliation involved in the passage
of such a resolution, and his generosity was the more stimulated by
the knowledge that his own promotion had been used to emphasize the
shortcoming of his friend. He could not argue that on the
battlefield itself there had been no faults committed; but he was
very earnest in insisting that the general strategy of the campaign
had been admirable, and the result in securing Chattanooga as a
fortified base for future operations had been glorious. He therefore
moved to amend the resolution by inserting Rosecrans's name and
modifying the rest so as to make it apply to the campaign and its
results. He supported this in an eloquent speech which dwelt upon
the admirable parts of Rosecrans's generalship and skilfully avoided
the question of personal conduct on the field. He carried the House
with him, but a joint resolution must pass the Senate also, and it
never came to a vote in that body.

When in 1880 Garfield was elected President, and in the midst of a
heated campaign had to run the gantlet of personal attacks
infinitely worse than the picket fire under which he had galloped
across the Kelley farm, a letter was produced which he had written
to Mr. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, in June, 1863, when he was
urging Rosecrans to terminate the inglorious delays at Murfreesboro
by marching on Tullahoma. In his letter to Mr. Chase he had
expressed in warmest terms his personal affection for Rosecrans, but
had also condemned the summer's delays as unnecessary and contrary
to military principles. In the violence of partisan discussion the
letter was seized upon as evidence of a breach of faith toward his
chief, who was now acting with the political party opposed to
Garfield's election. The letter was a personal one, written in
private friendship to Mr. Chase, with whom Garfield had kept up an
occasional correspondence since the beginning of the war. I had done
the like, for Mr. Chase had admitted us both to his intimacy when he
was Governor of Ohio. It cannot for a moment be maintained that
military subordination is inconsistent with temperate and respectful
criticism (for such this was) of a superior, in private
communications to a friend. But it was argued that the relation of
chief of staff involved another kind of confidence. It
unquestionably involved the duty of observing and maintaining
perfectly every confidence actually reposed in him. But the public
acts of the chief were anything but confidential. They were in the
face of all the world, and these only were the subject of his
private and friendly criticism. That criticism he had, moreover,
expressed to Rosecrans himself as distinctly as he wrote it to Mr.
Chase, and had declared it publicly in the written consultation or
council of war to which the corps and division commanders were
called. [Footnote: _Ante_, vol. i. p. 483.]

But Garfield was also at that time a member of Congress, having
duties to the President, the Cabinet, and his colleagues and fellow
members growing out of that relation. Rosecrans not only knew this,
but was supposed by many to have invited Garfield to take the staff
appointment partly by reason of this. Under all the circumstances,
therefore, the ground of complaint becomes shadowy and disappears.
Rosecrans, however, was made to think he had suffered a wrong. He
forgot the generosity with which Garfield had saved him from
humiliation in the session of 1863-64, and said bitter things which
put an end to the friendly relations which had till then been
maintained.

To return to Chattanooga in October, 1863: one thing remained to be
done before a new campaign could begin. A better mode of supplying
the army must be found. Thomas had answered Grant's injunction to
hold Chattanooga at all hazards by saying, "I will hold the town
till we starve." The memorable words have been interpreted as a
dauntless assurance of stubborn defence; but they more truly meant
that the actual peril was not from the enemy, but from hunger.
Rosecrans had begun to feel the necessity of opening a new route to
Bridgeport before he was relieved, and on the very day he laid down
the command, he had directed Brigadier-General W. F. Smith, sent to
him to be chief engineer of his army since the battle, to examine
the river banks in the vicinity of Williams Island, six or seven
miles below the town by the river, and to report upon the
feasibility of laying a pontoon bridge there which could be
protected. The expectation had been that Hooker would concentrate
his two corps at Bridgeport, make his own crossing of the Tennessee,
and push forward to the hills commanding Lookout Valley. By
intrenching himself strongly in the vicinity of Wauhatchie, he would
confine the Confederates to Lookout Mountain on the west, and cover
the roads along the river so as to make them safe for supply trains.
The only interruption in the connected communications would then be
around the base of Lookout itself, where the road could not be used,
of course, so long as Bragg should be able to hold the mountain. If,
however, a bridge could be laid somewhere in rear of such a
fortified position, the road on the north bank of the river could be
used, for this road ran across the neck of Moccasin Point, out of
range of a cannonade from the mountain, and after a short haul of a
mile or two, the wagon trains could recross the river by the bridge
at the town.

Hooker had showed no eagerness to take the laboring oar in this
business, and excused his delay in concentrating at Bridgeport by
the lack of wagons. General Smith's reconnoissance satisfied him
that Brown's Ferry, a little above the island, would admirably serve
the purpose. A roadway to the river on each side already existed. On
the south side was a gorge and a brook, which sheltered the landing
there, and would cover and hide troops moving toward the top of the
ridge commanding Lookout Valley. Smith reported his discovery to
Thomas and suggested that pontoons be built in Chattanooga, and used
to convey a force by night to the ferry, where they might be met by
Hooker coming from below. Thomas approved the plan, and as soon as
Grant arrived, he inspected the ground in company with Thomas and
Smith, and ordered it to be executed. The boats were completed by
the end of a week, and on the night of the 26th of October the
expedition started under the command of General Smith in person.
Brigadier-Generals Hazen and Turchin and Colonel T. R. Stanley of
the Eighteenth Ohio [Footnote: Colonel Stanley had been one of my
associates in the Ohio Senate in the winter of 1860-61. On the
origin and development of the plan and its complete execution, see
Reports of General Smith and others, Official Records, vol. xxxi.
pt. i. pp. 77-137.] were assigned to command the three detachments
of troops and boats assigned to the duty, and reported to Smith.
Covered by the darkness and in absolute silence, they were to float
down the stream which flowed around Moccasin Point in a great curve
under the base of Lookout, on which batteries commanded long reaches
of the river both above and below. Reaching the ferry on the enemy's
side, they would land and carry the picket posts with a rush, Hazen
to move to the left and seize the ridge facing the mountain, and
Turchin to do the like toward the right, facing down stream. Colonel
Stanley's detachment had the charge of the boats, which were fitted
with row-locks and oars, and these were to do the ferrying when the
proper place was reached. Each boat contained a corporal and four
men as a crew, and twenty-five armed soldiers. They were fifty in
number, besides two flatboats to be used as a ferry to cross the
artillery. The whole force consisted of 5000 men and three batteries
of artillery. The boats carried about a third of the whole, and the
principal columns marched by the road on the north bank to the
places assigned and were concealed in the forest. The plan worked
beautifully. Starting at three o'clock in the morning of the 27th,
the darkness of the night and a slight fog hid the boats from the
Confederate pickets. The oars were only used to keep the boats in
proper position in the current, and great care was taken to move
silently. Colonel Stanley took the lead with General Hazen in one of
the flatboats, having a good guide. The landing on the south bank
was found, and the troops landed and drove off the enemy's picket,
which was taken completely by surprise. The boats were swiftly
pulled to the north bank, where the troops which marched by the road
were already in position. The ferrying was hurried with a will, and
before the Confederates had time to bring any considerable force to
oppose, strong positions were taken covering the ferry, these were
covered by an abatis of slashed forest trees and intrenched. The
surprise had been complete, and the success had been perfect.

Hooker crossed the river on the bridge at Bridgeport, and on the
morning of the 28th marched by way of Running Waters and Whitesides
to Wauhatchie. Geary's division reached Wauhatchie about five in the
afternoon, and about midnight was fiercely attacked by Jenkins'
division of Longstreet's corps. The combat continued for some time,
the enemy having some advantage at first as they attacked Geary's
left flank in a direction from which he did not expect them. Other
troops were urged forward to Geary's assistance, but the enemy
retired as they approached the scene of action and only his division
was seriously engaged. He reported a list of 216 casualties, whilst
the Confederates admitted a loss of about 400. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xxxi. pt. i. pp. 119, 233.] Hooker's position was made
strongly defensible, so that Bragg did not again venture to disturb
it, and the easy lines of supply for Chattanooga were opened. The
subsistence problem was solved.