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THE Confederates ought not to entertain any illusion in regard to the blow which has just been dealt to them—a blow all the more painful because the removal of the blockade of
Chattanooga had cost
Grant only insignificant sacrifices.
They had to repair at any cost the fault which they committed when they failed to dispute with
Hooker the passes of
Raccoon Mountain.
Longstreet, perched upon the inaccessible heights of
Lookout Mountain, could no longer continue to witness, like an impotent spectator, the supplying of the enemy.
In his place his old commander,
Robert E. Lee, would certainly have essayed to interrupt the operations by one of those bold movements which he knew how to prepare with so much skill and to execute with so much decision.
The Federal Army of the Cumberland, as we have said, was not in a condition to take the field.
Hence a manoeuvre bold and yet but little dangerous ought to have presented itself to
Bragg's mind.
By abandoning the lines established around the town of
Chattanooga he would have yielded nothing to the
Federals, since they could not go as far as
Ringgold or
Dalton to reach his stores.
Instead of persisting in maintaining an investment which had become useless,
Bragg could concentrate his entire army on
Lookout Mountain and in
Will's Valley.
If he deemed it imprudent to retain his communications with the railroad by the way of
Rossville, it was easy for him to open,
via Trenton, Stevens' Gap, and
Ringgold, another line less exposed, about thirty-one miles long, which for a few days might have been used to ration his army.
These few days would have sufficed to wrest
Will's Valley from
Hooker, throw him back into
Chattanooga, and re-establish the siege of that town.
Indeed, once master of
Trenton,
Bragg might either attack Wauhatchie in flank or
