Longstreet differs with General Bragg as to
Movements of Pursuit The Confederates on Lookout MountainFederals
gain Comfortable Positions around itSuperior Officers of Bragg's Command
call for his RemovalBragg seeks ScapegoatsPresident Davis visits
the ArmyTests the Temper of the Officers towards BraggHe offers the
Command to LongstreetHe declinesHis ReasonsGeneral Bragg
ignores Signal-Service Reports and is surprisedGeneral Joe Hooker's
AdvanceNight Attack beyond Lookout MountainColonel Bratton's Clever
WorkReview of the Western Movement and CombinationIt should have
been effected in May instead of September Inference as to Results had the
First Proposition been promptly acted upon.
From accounts made public since the war it appears that his
animals were so reduced from want of forage at the time of the October rains
that General Rosecrans could not move his artillery over the muddy roads, which
suggests mention that the campaign ordered by the President from the change of
base could have forced him from his works in his crippled condition, and given
us comfortable operations between him and his reinforcements coming from
Virginia and Mississippi.
In his official account, General Bragg said that the road on
the south side was left under my command, which is misleading. My
commandthree divisionswas on his line of investment, east of the
city and of the mountain; the road was west of the mountain from six to twenty
miles from the command. We were in support of his batteries, to be ready for
action at the moment his artillery practice called for it. We held nearly as
much of his line as the other eight divisions. None of the commanders had
authority to move a man from the lines until the 8th of October, when he gave
orders for posting the sharp-shooters west of the mountain. The exposure of
this detachment was so serious that I took the liberty to send a brigade as a
rallying force for it, and the exposure of these led me to inquire as to the
assistance they could have from our cavalry force operating on the line from
the mountain to Bridgeport, some eight or ten miles behind them. The cavalry
was not found as watchful as the eyes of an army should be, and I reported them
to the general, but he thought otherwise, assured me that his reports were
regular, daily and sometimes oftener.
Nevertheless, prudence suggested more careful guard, and I
ordered Captain Manning, who brought from Virginia part of my signal force, to
establish a station in observation of Bridgeport and open its communication
with my head-quarters. General Bragg denied all reports sent him of the enemy
from my signal party, treated them with contempt, then reported that the road
was under my command.
His report is remarkable in that he failed to notice the
conduct of his officers, except of the killed and wounded and one division
commander whom he found at daylight of the 21st advancing his line of
skirmishers in careful search of the enemy who had retreated at early twilight
the evening before under shouts from the Confederate army that made the heavy
wood reverberate with resounding shouts of victory. That officer he commended
as the " ever vigilant." He gave due credit to his brave soldiers for their
gallant execution of his orders to charge and continue to charge against the
enemy's strongholds, as he knew that they would under his orders until their
efforts were successful, but the conduct of the battle in all of its phases
discredits this claim. When the right wing of his army stepped into the
Lafayette-Rossville road the enemy's forces were in full retreat through
McFarland Gap, and all fighting and charging had ceased, except the parting
blows of Preston's division with Granger's reserve corps. A peculiar feature of
the battle was the early ride of both. commanders from the field, leaving the
battle to their troops. General Rosecrans was generous enough to acknowledge
that he left his battle in other hands. General Bragg claimed everything for
himself, failing to mention that other hands were there.
While General Rosecrans was opening a route beyond reach of
our sharp-shooters, his chief engineer, General W. F. Smith, was busy upon a
plan for opening the line of railway on the south side, and Ills first step was
to break up the line of sharp-shooters. On the 19th he made a survey of the
river below Chattanooga. On the same day, General Rosecrans was superseded in
command by General George H. Thomas. A day or two after that my signal party
reported some stir about the enemy's camps near Bridgeport, and the cavalry
reported a working force at Nicojack Cave.
The cavalry was put under my orders for a reconnoissance,
and I was ordered to send a brigade of infantry scouting for the working party.
Nothing was found at the Cave or by the reconnoissance, and the cavalry
objected to my authority. On the 25th orders came to me to hold the mountain by
a brigade of infantry. After ordering the brigade, I reported a division
necessary to make possession secure, suggesting that the enemy's best move was
from Bridgeport and along the mountain crest; that we should assume that he
would be wise enough to adopt it, unless we prepared against it. But our
commander was disturbed by suggestions from subordinates, and thought them
presumptuous when they ventured to report of the probable movements of the
enemy.
On the night of the 27th of October, General Smith moved to
the execution of his plan against our line of sharp-shooters. He put fifty
pontoon-boats and two flat- boats in the river at Chattanooga, the former to
take twenty-five men each, the latter from forty to seventy- five,the
boats to float quietly down the river eight miles to Brown's Ferry, cross and
land the troops. At the same time a sufficient force was to march by the
highway to the same point, to be in readiness for the boats to carry them over
to their comrades. The sharp-shooters had been posted for the sole purpose of
breaking up the haul along the other bank, and not with a view of defending the
line, nor was it defensible, while the enemy had every convenience for making a
forced crossing and lodgement.'
The vigilant foe knew his opportunity, and only waited for
its timely execution. It is needless to say that General Smith had little
trouble in establishing his point. He manned his boats, floated them down to
the crossing, landed his men, and soon had the boats cross back for his other
men, pushed them over, and put them at work intrenching the strong ground
selected for their holding. By daylight he was comfortably intrenched, and had
his artillery on the other side in position to sweep along the front.
The Confederate commander did not think well enough of his
line when he had it to prepare to hold it, but when he found that the enemy
proposed to use it, he thought to order his infantry down to recover the ground
just demonstrated as indefensible, and ordered me to meet him on the mountain
next morning to learn his plans and receive his instructions for the work.
That afternoon the signal party reported the enemy advancing
from Bridgeport in force,artillery and infantry. This despatch was
forwarded to head-quarters, but was discredited. It was repeated about dark,
and again forwarded and denied.
On the morning of the 28th I reported as ordered. The
general complained of my party sending up false alarms. The only answer that I
could make was that they had been about two years in that service, and had not
made such mistakes before.
While laying his plans, sitting on the point of Lockout
rock, the enemy threw some shells at us, and succeeded in bursting one about
two hundred feet below us. That angered the general a little, and he ordered
Alexander to drop some of his shells about their heads. As this little practice
went on, a despatch messenger came bursting through the brushwood, asking for
General Longstreet, and reported the enemy marching from Bridgeport along the
base of the mountain,artillery and infantry. "General Bragg denied the
report, and rebuked the soldier for sensational alarms, but the soldier said, "
General, if you will ride to a point on the west side of the mountain I will
show them to you." We rode and saw the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps under General
Hooker, from the Army of the Potomac, marching quietly along the valley towards
Brown's Ferry. The general was surprised. So was I. But my surprise was that he
did not march along the mountain top, instead of the valley. It could have been
occupied with as little loss as he afterwards had and less danger. He had
marched by our line of cavalry without their knowing, and General Bragg had but
a brigade of infantry to meet him if he had chosen to march down along the top
of the mountain, and that was posted twenty miles from support.
My estimate of the force was five thousand. General Bragg
thought it not so strong, and appearance from the elevation seemed to justify
his estimate. Presently the ear-guard came in sight and made its bivouac
immediately in front of the point upon which we stood. The latter force was
estimated at fifteen hundred, and halted about three miles in rear of the main
body.
A plan was laid to capture the rear-guard by night attack.
He proposed to send me McLaws's and Jenkins's divisions for the work, and
ordered that it should be done in time for the divisions to withdraw to the
point of the mountain before daylight, left me to arrange details for attack,
and rode to give orders for the divisions, but changed his mind without giving
me notice, and only ordered Jenkins's division. After marching his command,
General Jenkins rode to the top of the mountain and reported.
The route over which the enemy had marched was along the
western base of a series of lesser heights, offering strong points for our
troops to find positions of defence between his main force and his rear-guard.
After giving instructions to General Jenkins, he was asked to explain the plan
of operations to General McLaws in case the latter was not in time to view the
position from the mountain before night. A point had been selected and ordered
to be held by one of Jenkins's brigades supported by McLaws's division, while
General Jenkins was to use his other brigades against the rear-guard, which
rested in the edge of a woodland of fair field of approach. The point at which
Law's brigade rested after being forced from its guard of the line of
sharp-shooters was near the northern base of the mountain about a mile east of
the route of the enemy's line of march. As General Law's detached service had
given him opportunity to learn something of the country, his brigade was chosen
as the brigade of position between the parts of the enemy's forces. General Law
was to move first, get into position by crossing the bridge over Lockout Creek,
to be followed by Jenkins's other brigades, when McLaws's division was to
advance to position in support of Law's brigade.
I waited on the mountain, the only point from which the
operations could be seen, until near midnight, when, seeing no indications of
the movements, I rode to the point that had been assigned for their assembly,
found the officers in wait discussing the movements, and, upon inquiry, learned
that McLaws's division had not been ordered. Under the impression that the
other division commander understood that the move had miscarried, I rode back
to my head-quarters, failing to give countermanding orders.
The gallant Jenkins, however, decided that the plan should
not be abandoned, and went to work in its execution by his single division. To
quiet the apprehensions of General Law he gave him Robertson's brigade to be
posted with his own, and Benning's brigade as their support, and ordered his
own brigade under Colonel Bratton to move cautiously against the rear-guard,
and make the attack if the opportunity was encouraging.
As soon as Colonel Bratton engaged, the alarm spread, the
enemy hastened to the relief of his rear, encountered the troops posted to
receive them, and made swift, severe battle. General Law claimed that he drove
off their fight, and, under the impression that Colonel Bratton had finished
his work and recrossed the bridge, withdrew his command, leaving Colonel
Bratton at the tide of his engagement. General Jenkins and Colonel Bratton were
left to their own cool and gallant skill to extricate the brigade from the
swoop of numbers accumulating against them, and, with the assistance of brave
Benning's Rock brigade, brought the command safely over, Benning's brigade
crossing as Bratton reached the bridge.
The conduct of Bratton's forces was one of the cleverest
pieces of work of the war, and the skill of its handling softened the blow that
took so many of our gallant officers and soldiers.
Colonel Bratton made clever disposition of his regiments,
and handled them well. He met gallant resistance, and in one instance had part
of his command forced back, but renewed the attack, making his line stronger,
and forced the enemy into crowded ranks and had him under converging circular
fire, with fair prospects, when recalled under orders to hasten to the bridge.
So urgent was the order that he left the dead and some of the wounded on the
field.
General Law lost of his own brigade (aggregate) |
........................ |
43 |
General Robertson (1 wounded and 8 missing) |
........................ |
9 |
Colonel Bratton lost (aggregate) |
........................ |
356 |
Confederate loss |
........................ |
408 |
Union loss (aggregate) |
........................ |
420 |
It was an oversight of mine not to give definite orders for
the troops to return to their camps before leaving them.
General Jenkins was ordered to inquire into the conduct of
the brigades of position, and reported evidence that General Law had said that
he did not care to win General Jenkins's spurs as a major-general. He was
ordered to prepare charges, but presently when we were ordered into active
campaign in East Tennessee he asked to have the matter put off to more
convenient time.
We may pause here to reflect upon the result of the
combination against Rosecrans's army in September, after our lines of transit
were seriously disturbed, and after the severe losses in Pennsylvania,
Mississippi, and Tennessee; and to consider in contrast the probable result of
the combination if effected in the early days of May, when it was first
proposed.
At that time General Grant was marching to lay siege upon
Vicksburg. The campaign in Virginia had been settled, for the time, by the
battle of Chancellorsville. Our railways were open and free from Virginia
through East Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, to Central Mississippi. The armies of
Rosecrans and Bragg were standing near Murfreesboro' and Shelbyville,
Tennessee. The Richmond authorities were trying to collect a force at Jackson,
Mississippi, to drive Grant's army from the siege. Two divisions of the First
Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia were marching from Suffolk to join
General Lee at Fredericksburg. Under these circumstances, positions, and
conditions, I proposed to Secretary Seddon, and afterwards to General Lee, as
the only means of relief for Vicksburg, that Johnston should be ordered with
his troops to join Bragg's army; that the divisions marching for Fredericksburg
should be ordered to meet Johnston's, the transit over converging lines would
give speedy combination, and Johnston should be ordered to strike Rosecrans in
overwhelming numbers and march on to the Ohio River.
As the combination of September and battle of Chickamauga
drew General Grant's army from its work in Mississippi to protect the line
through Tennessee and Kentucky, and two Federal corps from the Army of the
Potomac, the inference is fair that the earlier, more powerful combination
would have opened ways for grand results for the South, saved the eight
thousand lost in defending the march for Vicksburg, the thirty-one thousand
surrendered there. Port Hudson and its garrison of six thousand, and the
splendid Army of Northern Virginia the twenty thousand lost at Gettysburg. And
who can say that with these sixty-five thousand soldiers saved, and in the
ranks, the Southern cause would not have been on a grand ascending grade with
its bayonets and batteries bristling on the banks of the Ohio River on the 4th
day of July, 1863!
The elections of 1862 were not in support of the
Emancipation Proclamation. With the Mississippi River still closed, and the
Southern army along the banks of the Ohio, the elections of 1864 would have
been still more pronounced against the Federal policy, and a new administration
could have found a solution of the political imbroglio. " Blood is thicker than
water." |