John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[255] turned by the success of his preliminary strategy, instead of receiving his visitor courteously burst at once into abuse of the government, declaring that it had not properly sustained him, that his requests had been ignored and his plans thwarted, and that both Stanton and Halleck had done all they could to prevent his success. This outbreak was of course unexpected, but Dana, who always had control of his own temper, replied that he had no authority to listen to such complaints, that his mission was to find out what the government could do to aid him, and that he had no right to confer on other matters.¹

This retort produced a quieting effect, and was followed presently by a rational explanation of the condition of the campaign, the movements and position of the contending forces, and of the hopes and plans of the National commander. The Confederate authorities had concealed their real plans with skill. They had sent Longstreet with a formidable corps of veteran infantry from Virginia to reinforce Bragg,² and had gathered from Alabama and Mississippi all the detachments and garrisons they could replace by calling back to the colors the men Pemberton had surrendered and Grant had paroled at Vicksburg. No word of this had yet reached Rosecrans. He was unconscious of the storm about to burst upon him. His own army was moving by divergent roads on a front of forty miles or more southeastwardly through the mountains of northwestern Georgia, but with the instinct of a real strategist he foresaw that his columns could not properly support each other in case of a concentration of the enemy against either of them. He saw also that such a concentration was possible, and that the only way to counteract it successfully was to concentrate