[
249]
The campaign of
Chattanooga, in October and November, 1863, was as brilliant as it was brief.
It was not the continuous “pounding” of
Vicksburg, the dogged and obstinate fighting, and the terrible slaughter of the battles in
Virginia in the
spring and
summer of 1864; but in dash, in skilful surmounting of obstacles, in brilliant and heroic achievement, it was surpassed by no campaign of the war. Each of its five engagements had something of special merit to entitle it to lasting remembrance; the adroitly managed surprise by which the command of the river was won, and the toilsome sixty miles' travel of the supply trains over the worst roads in the world reduced to ten miles over a good road, and the subsequent sharp but successful
battle of Wauhatchie, in which the gray-haired hero,
Geary, showed himself as skilful as he was daring, indicated that the general in command at
Chattanooga was fully master of the situation.
The capture of
Lookout mountain by
General Hooker; the conflict “above the clouds,” where the lurid light that flamed from Union and rebel cannon mimicked, with wonderful effect, the thunders of Heaven's own artillery, and where, with every struggle, the stars and stripes crept higher and higher toward that summit which overlooked so many battle fields, till the morning's light beheld them waving proudly from its highest point; the bold and rapid movement, by which, while marshalled, as the enemy supposed, for a dress parade, the Army of the Cumberland swept across the plain and captured
Orchard Knob; that succession of fierce and
