October 23, 1863. |
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| Grant's Headquarters at Chattanooga.1 |
October. |
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When Grant arrived at Chattanooga,
he found General Thomas alive to the importance of immediately securing a safe and speedy way to that post for supplies for the Army of the Cumberland.
It could not exist there ten days longer, unless food and forage could be more speedily and bountifully furnished.
In concert with General W. F. Smith, who had been appointed Chief Engineer of the army, he had been making preparations for the immediate concentration of Hooker's corps at Bridgeport, with the view of opening the river and main wagon road from that point
to Brown's Ferry on the Tennessee, by which supplies might be taken to Chattanooga across the peninsula known as Moccasin Point,2 and thus avoid the Confederate batteries and sharp-shooters at Lookout Mountain altogether.
Grant approved Thomas's plan, and ordered its execution.
It was that Hooker should cross the river at Bridgeport with all the force at his command, and, pushing on to Wauhatchie, in Lookout Valley, threaten Bragg with a flank attack.
General Palmer was to march his division down the north side of the Tennessee to a point opposite Whitesides, where he was to cross the river and hold the road passed o ver by Hooker.
General Smith was to go down the river from Chattanooga, under cover of darkness, with about four thousand troops, some in batteaux, and some on foot along the north side and make a lodgment on the south bank of the stream at Brown's Ferry, and seize the range of hills at the mouth of Lookout Valley, which command ed the Kelly's Ferry road.
The movements of Hooker and Palmer might be made openly, but Smith's could only be performed in secret.
Hooker crossed at Bridgeport on pontoon bridges on the morning of the 26th
without opposition,3 and pushed on to Wauhatchie, which he reached on the 28th; and on the nights of the 26th and 27th, Smith successfully performed his part of the plan.
Eighteen hundred of his troops, under General Hazen, were embarked at Chattanooga on batteaux, intended to be used in the construction of a pontoon bridge, and at two o'clock in the morning they floated noiselessly, without oars, close under the banks past the point of Lookout Mountain, along a line of Confederate pickets seven miles in length, without being discovered, and arrived at Brown's Ferry just at
1 this was the appearance of Grant's Headquarters on the high bank of the Tennessee, as it appeared when the writer sketched it in the spring of 1866. it was near the bridge which the Nationals constructed across the Tennessee, at the upper part of Chattanooga. The eminence in the distance is Cameron's Hill, between the town and the river, which was strongly fortified.
2 This is so called because of its shape, which resembles an Indian moccasin, as Italy does that of a boot.
3 His troops consisted of a greater portion of the Eleventh Corps, under General Howard; a part of the Second Division of the Twelfth Corps, under General Geary; one company of the Fifth Tennessee Cavalry, and a part of a company of the First Alabama Cavalry.
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