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| The Chattanooga. |
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troops,” said Hooker, in his report of the battle, “ever rendered more brilliant service.”
1 For three hours the struggle continued, when the assailants.
fled, leaving one hundred and fifty of their number dead on Geary's front, also over one hundred prisoners and several hundred small-arms.
Thus, at a little past four o'clock in the morning, ended the battle of Wauhatchie.2 Its most practical result was the security of a safe communication for the Nationals between Bridgeport and Chattanooga, already obtained by Smith forty-eight hours before, and the defeat of Bragg's plans for starving the Army of the Cumberland into surrender.
A little steamboat, named the Chattanooga, which had been built at Bridgeport by the soldiers,3 was immediately loaded with two hundred thousand rations, and started up. the river.
It ran the blockade of Lookout Mountain to Brown's Ferry, and thus the army at Chattanooga was saved from actual famine.
Bragg was then in no condition for aggressive movements against the Nationals, for he had weakened his army by sending Longstreet, with a greater portion of his command, against Burnside, in East Tennessee, and was compelled to content himself with
simply holding his very strong position on the northern acclivities of Lookout Mountain and across the narrow Chattanooga Valley, near the mouth of Chattanooga Creek, and so along the crests of the Missionaries'
1 Among the gallant officers wounded in this engagement was Colonel Underwood, of the Thirty-third Massachusetts, who, on the recommendation of General Hooker, was promoted to Brigadier-General.
2 The National loss in this engagement was 416. The entire loss since crossing the Tennessee, 437; of whom 76 were killed, 339 wounded, and 22 were missing. Among the killed was Captain Geary, son of the General. General Green and Colonel Underwood were severely wounded.
An amusing incident of this night's battle is related. When it began, about two hundred mules, frightened: by the noise, dashed into the ranks of Wade Hampton's Legion, and produced a great panic. The Confederates. supposed it to be a charge of Hooker's cavalry, and fell back at first in some confusion. The incident inspired a mock-heroic poem, of six stanzas, in imitation of Tennyson's “Charge of the six hundred” at Balaklava (see note on page 633, volume II.), two verses of which were as follows:--Forward, the mule brigade!
Was there a mule dismayed?
Not when the long ears felt
All their ropes sundered.
Theirs not to make reply--
Theirs not to reason why--
Theirs but to make them fly--
On! to the Georgia troops
Broke the two hundred.
Mules to the right of them--
Mules to the left of them--
Mules all behind them--
Pawed, neighed, and thundered;
Breaking their own confines--
Breaking through Longstreet's lines
Testing chivalric spines,
Into the Georgia troops
Stormed the two hundred.
3 When Rosecrans's troops reached Bridgeport, and it was known that there was no steamboat to be found on the river, mechanics of the army set about building one for the public service. In a very short time the Chattanooga was made ready; and when the operations of the National troops in the Lookout Valley secured the safe navigation of the river from Bridgeport to Brown's Ferry, she commenced regular trips between the two places, under the command of Captain Arthur Edwards. She was called the “Cracker line” by the Confederates, the word “Cracker” being a name applied to the “mean whites” of “Georgia.” The Chattanooga was the first vessel of the kind built by the soldiers for their use. Others were begun soon afterward. She was constructed chiefly by the Michigan engineer regiment already mentioned.
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