Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

[440] rather unpopular than otherwise, and rested his reputation on the appreciative and intelligent, who steadily marked him as the military genius of the Confederacy. It remained for the sequel to justify the reputation of this greatest military man in the Confederacy, who, cooler even than Lee himself, without ardour, made up almost exclusively of intellect, saw more clearly than any other single person each approaching shadow of the war, and prophesied, with calm courage, against the madness of the Administration at Richmond and the extravagant vanity of the people.

When the Vicksburg campaign was decided upon at Richmond, Gen. Johnston then warned the authorities there that they should make choice between Mississippi and Tennessee; and in urging the retention of the latter State, he declared, with singular felicity of expression, that it was “the shield of the South.” In six weeks after the battle of Murfreesboro, our army in Tennessee was as strong as when it fought that battle, and, with ordinary generalship, might have driven Rosecrans from the State. But when Stevenson's division was sent to the lines of the Mississippi, Johnston saw the errour; he sent to Richmond a protest against it, which he thought of such historical importance as to duplicate and to copy carefully among his private memoranda; and he then predicted that the Richmond Administration, in trying to hold the Mississippi River and Tennessee, would lose both, and that the enemy, once pressing the northern frontier of Georgia, would obtain a position that would eventually prove the critical one of the war.

With his forces reduced for the defence of Vicksburg, Gen. Bragg insisted upon regarding his army in Tennessee as one merely of observation. Rosecrans was in his front, and Burnside, who commanded what was called the Army of the Cumberland, was in a position, by an advance towards Knoxville, to threaten his rear. In July, Gen. Bragg occupied a ridge extending from Bellbuckle towards Bradyville, very strong by nature on the right and made strong by fortifications on the left, in front of Shelbyville. An injudicious disposition of forces left Hoover's Gap undefended by our army. Rosecrans advanced upon Hoover's Gap. Three brigades of Confederates moved rapidly up, and held them in the Gap over forty hours. This position gained placed Rosecrans on Bragg's flank, who, to save his army, commenced a retreat, which was eventually continued to Chattanooga.

---

Expedition of John Morgan.

As part of the general plan of action in the West, and an important contribution to the success of Gen. Bragg's retreat, we must notice here a remarkable expedition of the famous cavalier, Gen. John Morgan, the