Year: 1866




treat under the circumstances would prob
ably produce the most un heard of disasters,
perhaps annihilation itself, and in its train
woes unnumbered and unheard of, for to
retreat would be not only TO sacrifice the
army and all its equipments, but all our
vast chain Of depots and detachments
throughout the States named, with the
countless millions they cost, but also the
scope OF territory they covered, and with
the grand moral effects of victory. which
at that Juncture would have inevitably
turned the scale against US, for Just at
that momentous period of our struggle
the Scales Of Fate seemed to vibrate with
such an even beam that the breath of an in
fant might have changed the balance
The national destinies hung on single
thread, and dangled suspended on the ac-
cidents of chance, or the moral courage
and Ealor of single heart and arm. In
this case necessity was inexorable. The
army must be fed. The place must be
sustained at every sacrifice possible
Every ration, every round Of ammuni-
tlon, aud every pound of forage required,
must be brought from the distant line of
the Ohio, and it became painful calcula-
tlon between resistance and endurance
between the lives of men and the con-
sumption of mules-for as constant use
destroyed the roads, it required twelve
or fourteen mules to haul single ton of
freight over the intolerable roads, to say
nothing of provisions which could not be
carried, and for want Of which the poor ami
mails died by thousands and tens of thou
sands-beyond any thing recorded in his
tory, save perhaps the retreat Of the
French from Moscow. In spite of this
frightlul sacrifice, the subsistence in the
depot at Chattanooga became daily low
er, although the army was reduced to half,
and large proportion of it even to quar-
ter rations. Still the mules died. Still
our means of transportation melted away.
Our furnishing army became hourly more
gaunt and hollow eyed, while the over
flowing throngs in our hospitals found
vent in our crowded graveyards.


At this critical juneture General Hook
er, with General Grant-who had about
this time been appointed to the supreme
command of our armies-arrived at Nash
vile, with the 11th and 18th corps from
the army Of the Potomac and proceeded
at once to Bridgeport, to concert with the
veteran, Thomas, as to the most feasible
mode of relieving his sorely pressed and
famishing forces. After brief consulta-
ton the 11th corps and the I'd division
(Geary's) of the 18th corps--the last at
Geary's earnest request-were orderrd
to Bridgeport, and after hurried pre-
paration, crossed the Tennessee on pom
toons at that point.


To make their movements perfectly in
telligible, it will be necessary to mingle
with the account a cursory view of the
scene of their operations on the South
bank of the Tennessee, where the enemy
had destroyed the railroads and bridges.


The road from Bridgeport to Chatta-
nooga after crossing the river, occasional
lly hugs its banks and passes by Shell
Mound and through a series of low roll
ing hills, and then enters the deep valley
formed by Lookout Mountain on the right
and by Raccoon Mountain on the lett
The latter rising bold and rugged from
the river, is, in one or two places pierced
with gloomy gorges and raises its wooden
heights almost to the level of its more re-
nowned ueighbor, the Lookout, which
starting almost in the suburbs of Chatta-
nooga towers abruptly into the very clouds
and stretches away diagonally from the
river many miles to the Southwest. The
river here is exceedingly tortuous. Pas
sing the city, it stretches to the South
then doubling back to the North, and
then again to the South, and then to the
| North once more-it forms the long ton,
CUES or pennsulas below the town-thc
first on the Northern side, looking intt
one another like the cogs of wheel
/ Opposite the town stretched a pontoon
bridge. The plan of the assembled Gen
erals was to let large force under Hook
er advance up the valley, while com
uensurate force from the town, under
General Hagen, dropped down the rive,
in the pontoon boats to Browns ferry, al
the lower bend of the first pensinsula
where they hoped to surprise the enemy
and effect permanent lodgment, aud al
the same time junction with the forces
under Hooker, which were to leave
Bridgeport the morning before, and pene
trating Lookout valley, drive IN the scat
tered outposts of the Confederates, un
cover the gorge through the Raccoon
mountain to the river at Kellys Landing
to which boats could then ascend from
Bridgeport with supplies, and there for
tify their positions This landing on the
south side, at the base OF the lower peu
insula, to which have alluded, to cut {
road across this base to where Hanger
was expected to make foothold and then
cross on pontoons to the northern side
and thence across the upper tongue to the
bridge at Chattanooga, would give only
six miles of land travel against sixty mile:
over the worn out route on northern bani
I-as boats could transfer everything from
the railroad terminus at Bridgeport t