Chapter 5: the Chattanooga campaign.--movements of Sherman's and Burnside's forces.
- Bragg and his subordinates -- suggestions of the Confederate “War Department,” 143. -- troops sent to Rosecrans -- Chattanooga to be held, 144. -- Sherman moves on Jackson, Mississippi. 145. -- Johnston attacked at and driven from Jackson, 146. -- destruction of property at Jackson, 147. -- expedition to the Yazoo River -- expedition against Helena, 148. -- battle at Helena, 149. -- Confederate cavalry raids, 150. -- General Grant at Chattanooga -- Hooker's Corps at Bridgeport, 151. -- Hooker marches toward Lookout Mountain, 152. -- battle at Wauhatchie, 153. -- the soldiers' steamboat, 154. -- battle of Blue Springs -- operations in East Tennessee, 155. -- Longstreet invades the East Tennessee Valley, 156. -- he invests Knoxville, 157. -- Sherman's troops move eastward from the Mississippi River, 158. -- they approach Chattanooga, 159. -- Grant and Bragg prepare for battle -- Thomas moves to attack, 160. -- seizure of Orchard Knob, 161. -- the Nationals scale Lookout Mountain, 162. -- battle on Lookout Mountain, 163. -- Sherman crosses the Tennessee, 164. -- preparations for another battle, 165. -- battle on the Missionaries' Ridge, 166, 167. -- capture of the Missionaries' Ridge, 168. -- retreat of the Confederates -- pursuit by the Nationals, 169. -- battle of Ringgold -- end of the campaign against Bragg, 170.
In returning to Chattanooga, Rosecrans commenced the formidable line of fortifications around that town, under the skillful directions of General James St. Clair Morton, of the engineers, which excited the admiration of all; and within twenty-four hours after the army moved from Rossville, it was strongly intrenched — so strongly that Bragg could not, with safety, make a direct attack upon it. He did not attempt it, but took measures for starving it into a surrender, by cutting off its avenues of supplies. Bragg found himself in a most unpleasant predicament. Regarding the failure of Polk and Hindman to bring on the battle at an earlier hour on the morning of the 20th1 as the chief cause of his inability to secure a substantial victory, he had them placed under arrest, and thereby caused widespread murmuring, and a mutinous spirit in his army. He was severely censured for not securing that victory himself, by pursuing the fugitives when they moved from the Missionaries' Ridge, and striking them in the open, broken plain, in front of Chattanooga. More aggravating still was a requirement by the authorities at Richmond that he should attempt the impossible feat of moving by his left across the Tennessee River, and advancing on Nashville. So preposterous was this requirement, that he could scarcely conceal his contempt when saying to his superiors, “The suggestion requires notice only because it will find a place in the files of the War Department.” He told them that such a movement was utterly impossible, for want of transportation; that half his army consisted of re-enforcements that had joined him just before the recent battle, without transportation or artillery horses; that a third of his own artillery horses were lost; that he had no means of crossing a wide river liable to be flooded any hour by a rain-storm in the mountains; and that by such movement he would have to abandon all the fruits of his victory on the Chickamauga, and leave exposed vast supplies for the use of the Confederate army. Bragg did not entertain the proposition from the War Department for a moment, but proceeded at once to the more practicable business of starving the Army of the Cumberland. For this purpose he had now great advantages. By his advance to Lookout Mountain, and its vicinity, when Rosecrans retired to Chattanooga, he gained possession of the left bank of the Tennessee to Bridgeport, by which he commanded the navigation of that stream, and the road along its margin opposite, at the foot of the precipitous mountain ranges that skirt it. He thus cut off Rosecrans from direct communication
