previous next
[295] emergency was a pressing one, and in designating Granger to command the relieving column, Grant instructed him to use all possible haste and energy. But Granger failing to move with celerity, Grant ordered Sherman, a day or two later, to take command of the relieving troops, and at the same time added enough to them to make the column irresistible. As operations had ceased elsewhere, Dana was, as usual, glad to go, and overtook Sherman at Charleston, on the Hiwassee River, two days from Chattanooga. Thenceforth we were constantly with the advance-guard, doing all in our power to hurry the march. Our route traversed Athens, Philadelphia, Morgantown, and Marysville, all the way through a beautiful country, well supplied with cattle and provisions. Long's cavalry reached Knoxville at 3 A. M., December 4th, but we were delayed till late the next afternoon. Meanwhile the enemy, after suffering a bloody repulse on the 29th, had raised the siege and marched away to the north the next day. He had, of course, been advised of Sherman's coming, but as the relieving march was necessarily slow, he had ample start to make it difficult, if not impossible, to overtake him.

In addition to taking an active part in all the operations, Dana, by his despatches, as usual kept the government informed as to the incidents of the march, the construction of the bridges, the movements of the various infantry corps and divisions, and the failure of Elliot's cavalry to move from Sparta through Kingston for the purpose of taking part in the campaign. He commented upon the expectations of General Frank P. Blair, as to the command of an army corps, called attention to the anger of Grant at Granger, declared, notwithstanding his previous commendation, that Granger was unfit to command, intimated that Sheridan ought to succeed him, and finally prepared the secretary's mind for the fact that the winter rains would probably put an end to further operations in that quarter.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide People (automatically extracted)
Sort people alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a person to search for him/her in this document.
T. W. Sherman (3)
U. S. Grant (3)
Gordon Granger (3)
Stanton Dana (2)
Sheridan (1)
Long (1)
Elliot (1)
Frank P. Blair (1)
hide Dates (automatically extracted)
Sort dates alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a date to search for it in this document.
December 4th (1)
29th (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: