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in the open, was repulsed, but later sat down behind entrenchments in front of Rosecrans at Chattanooga, and almost starved out the Federal army before it could be relieved.
Grant attacked Bragg to drive him off. Hooker was successful at Lookout Mountain, but Sherman did not make any headway against the right of the Confederate army, being checked before the heavy trenches.
Grant ordered Thomas' men to take the works at the foot of Missionary Ridge and halt.
Because of the Federal defeat at Chickamauga, it is reported that Grant feared that the men of Thomas' army could not be trusted to stand under heavy pressure, and he did not want them to go farther than the foot of the ridge.
He ordered that they stop there, after driving the Confederates from the trenches.
But the lines kept on, higher, higher, and the clouds of battle became larger as they ascended.
Seeing the line disobeying orders, Grant turned to Thomas, who was near, and inquired by whose orders the men had gone beyond the foot of the mountain, to which Thomas is said to have replied, “By their own, I think.”
Grant's rejoinder was: “If they succeed, all right.
But if they don't, some one will suffer for this.”
The works at the top were heavy; but Thomas' troops succeeded, and no one suffered except the gallant men of both sides who fell.
Grant went East, turning over the command of the Western Federal armies to Sherman, who prepared to attack Johnston, entrenched around Dalton, in northern Georgia.
Buzzard's Roost formed the strongest portion of Johnston's line, which consisted of heavy fortifications on the heights, in front of which lighter lines had been placed.
Sherman felt this position, found it almost impregnable, made a flank movement, and turned Johnston out of his stronghold.
In the retaining attack on the works, the Federal troops took a portion of the lower lines of entrenchments, but found the upper works too strong.
The turning movement having succeeded, the Union troops withdrew from the front, and Johnston retired to
Review of Reviews. New York. 1912.
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