St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-08-17
Ex-President Garfield Respon-
Sible for the Terrible Bat
tie Of Chickamauga.
After Securing the Position
Of Chief of Staff to Gen.
RoSecpans,
He Wrote to Secretary Chase
Denouneing Rosecrans as
an Imbeeile.
But for This Chattanooga
Could Have Been Oeeu-
pied Without Loss.

CLEVELAND, O., Aug. 16.-Donn Pi-
att, in letter from Makochee to the
Plaindealer, gives some personal recol-
lections that throw a vivid light on the
life of James A. Garfield, and show his
character up in an unfavorable light.
In the course of his letter Mr.. Piatt
says: 81 thought for many years that L
knew Garfield. We were, before the war,
i'll the war and after, in the political
arena, intimate as brothers. l sympa-
thized with and sOrroWed over his strug-
gle for life after being shot down by a
maniac, and cried like child when the
news reached me of his cruel death.
But sorrow deeper than this was re-
served for me when, years after, engaged
on the life of Gen. George III. Thomas, l
came on Garfield's confidential letter to
Salmon p. Chase, written from Rose
crans' headquarters at Murfreesboro.
was fairly stunned, for my investigation
of the events of that wonderful cam
paign gave me an information that the
public was deprived of. This letter
was the cause of the bloody battle of
Chickamauga and all the loss we suf-
fered in the terrible two days fighting.
l write this with reluctance now. But
these are facts that must sooner or later
pass to public record. ] did not know
how tenderly attached 1 was to this
eminent man until, reading his letter by
the lurid light of disastrous events,
was forced to take out all vestige of af-
fection from my heart. l was driven to
the painful conclusion that the man to
whom had given so many years of dis
interested devotion was not living
reality, but creature of my imagina-
tioD.
GarfieId's Crime
was this: When Lieut.. Col. Garusche,
Gen. Rosecrans' chief of staff, was
killed at the battle of Stone River, Gar
fieIc, through Salmon P. Chase. then sec
retafy of the treasury, made applica-
ton for the position. n.SecretaryChase got
Rosecrans to make application for the
assignment, and Garfield was appointed
Rosecrans' chief of staff. Rosecrans
found Garfield positively lovable, Tor
Garfield labored to secure his chiefs
confidence; and yet Garfield, in the
midst of Rosecrans' troubles with the
war department arising out of his de-
mand for supplies and reinforcements,
sat down in the solitude of his tent and
wrote a confidential letter to Salmon
P. Chase, in which he denounced his
general as an Imbecile utterly incapable
of commanding such an army
as that of the Cumberland.
Chase was Rosecrans' one available
friend in the government. Chase was
at first stunned and ther demoraliZed.
He admired Stanton, and always felt a
reluctance to interfere in his depart
ment, especially against its head. He
didn't take up the contest, and left
RosecranS to his fate, and without the
reinforcements necessary to protect his
tlanks when he crossed three ranges of
almost inaccessible mountains, deep,
wide river, and maneuvered Bragg out
of the grand gateway of the South, that,
when taken, as Thomas had promised,
brought the deadly conflict to a close.
Had Rosecrans been given what he had
reasonably a right to demand, the
mounted infantry, he would have occu-
pied Chattanooga without the loss of a
man. All the blood of these two awful
days came from the one treacherOus let
ter that demoralized one friend and
nearly destroyed the other.