John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

The campaign having come to an untimely stop at Knoxville, Dana and I concluded to return to Chattanooga by the route we had just marched over, and on the way down had the company of Generals Blair and Schurz. As we travelled rapidly, Dana's horse gave out the second day, and as Longstreet's command had swept the country clear of everything fit for a remount, I asked Blair to let Dana have a led horse of his till another could be got, but this he churlishly declined to do. At the village of Philadelphia, a few miles in the rear, we had heard confidentially of a horse which had been concealed from the Confederates in a stall between a false wall and the rear end of the stable, and Dana proposed to go back for that, but the distance was too great. We therefore pushed on as best we could till we came to the camp of Colonel Hecker (president of the German Confederation of 1848). Here we discovered an excellent gray gelding running at large in a field near by, and, although strict orders had been issued to respect private property, at our request the colonel directed his men to catch the horse and bring it in, adding by way of explanation, with a suggestive twinkle of the eye, “It belongs to Herr Dana, the Assistant Secretary of War.”

During this long but pleasant ride Dana and Schurz beguiled the journey with conversations in German and English, which gave each a high opinion of the other's skill in languages, as previously related.

Dana and I got back to Chattanooga on December 10th, and after conferences with Grant, not only about the campaign just finished, but about the next one which should be undertaken, Dana made arrangements to return to Washington for the purpose of laying Grant's views before the Secretary of War and the President more fully than could be done by letter. General Smith, who had been transferred early in the campaign to Grant's staff as chief engineer, and as such had exercised a decisive influence