Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 10.
Frank Moore, Ed.

[373] the hospitals, earned the lasting gratitude of the soldier, and deserve the highest commendation. The great number of wounded thrown suddenly upon their hands taxed every energy and every faculty. With means greatly inadequate, especially in transportation, they soon reduced confusion into order, and, by assiduity and skill, afforded to the gallant sufferers that temporal relief for which they might look in vain to any other source. In this connection, it is a pleasing duty to acknowledge in grateful terms the deep indebtededness of the army to the Hospital Relief Associations, which so promptly and so generously pressed forward their much-needed assistance. Under the admirable management of their officers in Atlanta, we were soon furnished with every necessary and comfort, and stores continued to arrive until notice was given that our wants were all supplied. The officers of my staff, persona] and general, served me on this field and on the arduous marches, proceeding with their usual zeal, intelligence and gallantry.

The whole cavalry force having been dispatched to press the enemy and cut off detachments, orders were given for the army to move to a point near the railroad and convenient to water, still interposing between the enemy and our large number of wounded, our trophies, and our wounded prisoners, whose removal from the field occupied many days.

Our supplies of all kinds were greatly reduced, the railroad having been constantly occupied in transporting troops, prisoners, and our wounded, and the bridges having been destroyed to a point two miles south of Ringgold. These supplies were ordered to be replenished, and as soon as it was seen that we could be subsisted, the army was moved forward to seize and hold the only communication the enemy had with his supplies in the rear. His important road, and the shortest by half to his depot at Bridgeport, lay along the south bank of the Tennessee. The holding of this all-important route was confided to Lieutenant-General Longstreet's command, and its possession forced the enemy to a road double the length, over two ranges of mountains, by wagon transportation. At the same time, our cavalry, in large force, was thrown across the river to operate on this long and difficult route. These dispositions, faithfully sustained, insured the enemy's speedy evacuation of Chattanooga for want of food and forage. Possessed of the shortest road to his depot, and the one by which reinforcements must reach him, we held him at our mercy, and his destruction was only a question of time. The disastrous loss of these advantages must be the subject of a future communication. The suggestion of a movement by our right, immediately after the battle, to the north of the Tennessee, and thence upon Nashville, requires notice only because it will find a place on the files of the department. Such a movement was utterly impossible for want of transportation. Nearly half our army consisted of reinforcements just before the battle, without a wagon or an artillery horse, and nearly, if not quite, a third of the artillery horses on the field had been lost. The railroad bridges, too, had been destroyed to a point south of Ringgold, and, in all, the road from Cleveland to Knoxville. To these insurmountable difficulties were added the entire absence of means to cross the river, except by fording at a few precarious points too deep for artillery, and the well-known danger of sudden rises, by which all communication would be cut, a contingency which did actually happen a few days after the visionary scheme was proposed. But the most serious objection to the proposition was its entire want of military propriety. It abandoned to the enemy our entire line of communication, and laid open to him our depots of supplies, whilst it placed us with a greatly inferior force beyond a difficult and, at times, impassable river, in a country affording no subsistence to men or animals. It also left open to the enemy, at a distance of only ten miles, our battle-field, with thousands of our wounded and his own, and all the trophies and supplies we had won. All this was to be risked and given up for what? To gain the enemy's rear and cut him off from his depot of supplies by the route over the mountains, when the very movement abandoned to his unmolested use the better and more practicable route of half the length on the south side of the river. It is hardly necessary to say the proposition was not even entertained, whatever may have been the inferences drawn from subsequent movements.

I am, Sir, very respectfully,

Your obedient servant,

Sir: I forward the reports of the battles of Chickamauga by my aid-de-camp. Lieutenant Ellis. The maps of the battle-field have been so long and so unexpectedly delayed that I conclude not to wait for them any longer. They are daily expected from Dalton, where I left them nearly completed, and will be forwarded as soon as received.

I am, Sir, very respectfully,

Your obedient servant,