8. Chattanooga
Thomas, reported Charles Dana, was now the idol of the men, for he was "the man who saved them, and indeed saved us all. For my own part, I confess I share their feeling. I know no other man whose composition and character are so much like those of Washington; he is at once an elegant gentleman and a heroic soldier." By contrast, his fellow corps commanders were subjected to scorn. In the fog of war it is not easy to say whether the conduct of McCook and Crittenden had been remiss. But the impression was that it was. Secretary of War Stanton suspended both from command and ordered them to Indianapolis, Indiana, to be tried as military felons, which seemed to augur another political trial.
Until September 24, Federal troops had held the summit of Lookout Mountain, which was the key to all operations around Chattanooga. It dominated the entire scene of towering mountains and deep valleys, the tortuously winding Tennessee River, the tributary streams emptying into it, the railroads from south and west and the wagon roads. But as he hunkered down in Chattanooga and tried to prepare for its defense, Rosecrans yielded the summit (over the protests of Garfield, Granger, and others) as well as Missionary Ridge. He also gave up two Tennessee River ferries important to the Federal line of supply.
Bragg posted his army around the town, occupied all points yielded, placed his left flank along the mountain heights, held the railroads going south and even the main routes north. Altogether, his lines extended from Lookout Mountain across Chattanooga Valley to Missionary Ridge, and along its base and summit to the Tennessee River. This left the Union army but one road, some sixty miles in length, over the mountains to Bridgeport for supplies. Even unchallenged, this road was inadequate. But it was harassed by raids, shelled off and on, awash with mud, and obstructed by hundreds of dead mules and horses who had perished hauling supplies. Bragg knew that if he could hold the river and the shorter roads to Bridgeport the surrender of the Union army was only a matter of time.
In its idyllic, natural setting, Chattanooga had once been a beautiful town. But war had turned it into a bleak, sad-looking, and semi-deserted place. Houses had been ransacked for food and clothing; its lawns and shrubbery eaten by mules; its trees felled and fences dismantled for fuel and defense works, its fields and gardens filled with tents. Just behind the town rows of crude army huts dotted the hills, and the plain in front was furrowed with riflepits. As log and earthenware breastworks and redoubts went up, the whole perimeter was fortified.
In the Federal army, rations were drastically reduced, malnutrition set in, and the men were said to be so debilitated they could hardly stand at their posts. The search for food occupied their waking hours. They followed forage wagons and picked up the grain that leaked out. They probed in the mud where the mules were fed and picked out grains of corn. Some quarreled over camp scraps and offal. The animals were almost without forage, and their very bones seemed to rattle within their drawn hides. Instead of the usual feed, they were sustained on tender cane cut from the riverbed. Over the next few weeks, thousands of draft animals would die of starvation and toil as they struggled to haul the provisions needed by the army to survive.
Through their field glasses the Rebels could watch almost every movement the Federals made. The latter in turn, wrote one colonel, "could...trace the intrenched lines" of the Rebels, "and note the location of their field batteries and big guns. Nearly every evening the signal torches on Lookout Mountain and on Mission Ridge were flashing messages to each other over our heads and across the valley. Our signal officers soon picked up their code....Occasionally a big gun on Lookout Mountain would open out in a flash like the full moon and then we suddenly became interested in locating the fall of the shell."
Few occasions arose for levity under such dire conditions. But one morning, when Thomas and Garfield were inspecting the perimeter defenses, they heard someone shouting, "Hello, mister! you! I want to speak with you." On looking around, Thomas discovered that he was the "mister" wanted, and that the person who had hailed him was a rough backwoods soldier from East Tennessee. He stopped, and the man approached him and began, "Mister, I want to get a furlough."
"On what grounds, my man?"
"I want to go home and see my wife."
"How long since you saw your wife?"
"Ever since I enlisted -- nigh on to three months."
"Three months!" exclaimed Thomas, good-naturedly. "Why, my good man, I haven't seen my wife for three years."
The East Tennesseean stopped whittling the stick he had in his hand and stared.
"Waall, you see," he said at length, with a sheepish smile, "me and my wife ain't that kind."
Rosecrans expected Bragg to try to take Chattanooga by assault, and as the Rebel shelling drew near feared a battle day and night. No attack came, and after several days, thanks to "the Herculean labors" of the army -- as managed, according to Dana, mainly by Thomas -- the Union defenses were made so formidable that "it was certain that [the town] could only be taken by a regular siege....The strength of our forces was about forty-five thousand effective men, and we had ten days' full rations on hand. Chattanooga could hold out, but it was apparent that no offensive operations were possible until reinforcements came." These were on their way -- four divisions under Sherman from Vicksburg, two corps under Hooker from Virginia -- but would take time to arrive.
Besieged now by the very army he had maneuvered out, Rosecrans was in a shaken and bewildered state. Dana observed:
He dawdled with trifles in a manner which scarcely can be imagined. With plenty of zealous and energetic officers ready to do whatever needed to be done, precious time was lost because our dazed and mazy commander could not perceive the catastrophe that was close upon nor fix his mind upon the means of preventing it. I never saw anything which seemed so lamentable and hopeless. Our animals were starving, the men had starvation before them, and the enemy was bound soon to make desperate efforts to dislodge us. Yet the commanding general devoted that part of the time which was not employed in pleasant gossip to the composition of a long report to prove that the Government was to blame for his failure....His mind scattered; there was no system in the use of his busy days and restless nights.
To Lincoln, Rosecrans seemed "stunned and confused, like a duck hit on the head."
Stanton had never liked Rosecrans, but after Chickamauga he "despised" him, and even called him "a damned coward," which was hardly true. "I saw him under fire at Stones River," remarked General Steedman, "and I know he was no coward....But he was not the man for the tremendous events with which he was associated. They were too large for him." Before long, a consensus developed that he had to be removed. On September 28, Navy Secretary Gideon Welles noted in his diary that Lincoln considered putting an "Eastern general" in his place. But Welles told Lincoln he ought to go with Thomas for he doubted there was "any one suitable for that command or the equal of Thomas, if a change was to be made." Dana pushed hard for Thomas, too, and on September 30, Stanton agreed. "The merits of General Thomas and the debt of gratitude the nation owes to his valor and skill are fully appreciated here," he wired Dana, "and I wish you to tell him so. It is not my fault that he was not in chief command months ago." Soon thereafter, on October 4, Dana went to see Thomas and read him this telegram. "He was too much affected by it to reply immediately," wrote Dana. Thomas then said he was grateful for Stanton's confidence and wanted him to know that he had long wanted an independent command -- "an army that I could myself have organized, disciplined, distributed, and combined." But, Thomas added pointedly, he did not want to take over an army where he might be "exposed to the imputation of having intrigued...to supplant my previous commander."
The rush of events, however, was fast overriding his qualms. Dana's dispatches had so alarmed Stanton that he journeyed west to meet Grant at Indianapolis, and together they continued on to Louisville. Meanwhile, General Steedman (whose opinion was sought in Washington as an influential "War Democrat") had also gone to Washington at Lincoln's request. En route, he met with Stanton in Louisville and they talked about the crisis at Chattanooga through the night. In Washington, Steedman's audience with Lincoln lasted for three hours. Lincoln asked him directly: "Who do you think is the fittest man to command?" "There is only one man in the army fit to command it," replied Steedman. "Who is that?" asked Lincoln. "General George H. Thomas." "He grasped me by the hand, and said: 'General Steedman, I am glad to hear you say that. I have been of that opinion for the last 90 days, but nearly all the other gentlemen here have disagreed with me. I believe you are right.'"
It is not clear why Lincoln put it that way, since the opposite was clearly true. But later that day, Lincoln issued an order that placed the departments and armies of the Ohio, Tennessee, and Cumberland in the Military Division of the Mississippi under Grant; sustained Burnside as head of the Army of the Ohio; allowed Grant to replace himself with Sherman as head of the Army of the Tennessee; and gave Grant the option of giving Thomas command of the Army of the Cumberland instead of Rosecrans. Dana, who had been ordered to Louisville to meet with Stanton, was stopped en route by Grant, who told him that the new command arrangements had been made. Grant knew from various shared dispatches that Rosecrans had become untenable, and that Lincoln and Stanton both thought Thomas should take his place. Grant agreed, as expected, and wired Thomas: "Hold ...
