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little rain for sixteen hours the mud was growing deeper, the mortality along the animals increasing, that the mules “were too weak to haul the wagons up the mountains without doubling the teams,” and that the
chief of artillery had told him that in case of retirement “he could not possibly haul away the artillery with the horses that are left.”
In the same despatch he adds:
... Nothing can prevent the retreat of the army from this place within a fortnight, and with a vast loss of public property and possibly of life, except the opening of the river. ... In the midst of all these difficulties General Rosecrans seems to be insensible to the impending danger, and dawdles with trifles in a manner which can scarcely be imagined. ... Meanwhile, with plenty of zealous and energetic officers ready to do whatever can be done, all this precious time is lost because our dazed and mazy commander cannot perceive the catastrophe that is close upon us, nor fix his mind on the means of preventing it. I never saw anything which seemed so lamentable and hopeless.
The same afternoon he telegraphed that he had just had
... “a full conversation with General Rosecrans upon the situation, in which he says that the possession of the river as far up as the head of Williams Island, at least, is a sine qua non to the holding of Chattanooga.” . . That Rosecrans expects “as soon as the weather will allow, the enemy will cross the river in force on our left, and then it will be necessary for us to fight a battle, or else to retreat from here, and attempt to hold the line of the Cumberland Mountains” . . . And finally that Rosecrans “inclines to the opinion that they will rather attempt to crush Burnside first.”
In the foregoing it is painfully manifest that there is neither plan nor purpose.
All is vague, uncertain, and vacillating in the mind of the
commanding general.
So
