History of the United States, Volume 4 | Page 9

Portrait.] General Joseph Hooker.
While Hooker had been thus engaged, and for some days before, Sherman had been at a movement that was even more momentous. He had slyly thrust his army up the Tennessee River above the city, placing it between the river and Missionary Ridge, and had worked its flank to the left as far as the mouth of Chickamauga Creek. He had thus gotten possession of the entire northeastern spur of that ridge with hardly the loss of a corporal's guard.
The morrow after this was accomplished, November 25, 1863, was a day of blood. Bragg's forces were now massed on Missionary Ridge, mainly in front of Thomas and Sherman. Hooker had come down into the valley and was to turn the enemy's left. If Bragg massed troops on either of the two wings, Thomas's braves were to be let slip against the weakened centre. Sherman got into action early in the morning, and fought his painfully difficult way slowly up the rugged acclivities in his front. Hooker had to bridge Chattanooga Creek, and did not attack till afternoon. By three o'clock Sherman was so hard pressed that Grant found it necessary to relieve him by sending Thomas forward at the centre.
[Illustration: Several hundred soldiers in battle.] The Battle of Lookout Mountain. (The "Battle Above the Clouds.")
The signal guns boom--one, two, three, four, five, six. Up spring Thomas's heroes from their breastworks, and rush like a whirlwind for the first line of Confederate rifle-pits. Bragg sees the advance and hurries help to oppose. His batteries open with shot and shell, then with canister. The infantry rake Thomas with a withering fire. Yet on, double quick, dash the lines of blue over the open plain, over rocks, stumps, and breastworks, bayonetting back or capturing their antagonists, till the first line of rifle-pits is theirs.
The orders had been to halt at this point and re-form. But here, with Bragg's artillery raining a veritable hell-fire upon them--here is no place of resting, and as the men's blood is up, they sweep forward unbidden, with a cheer. It is five hundred yards to the top--a steep ascent, covered with bowlders and fallen timber. Over the rocks, under and through the timber, each one scrambles on as he can. Half-way up is a line of small works. It is carried with a rush, and on the men go, right up to the crest of the ridge. Now they confront the heaviest breastworks. The air is thick with whizzing musket-balls, and fifty cannon belch flame and death. But nothing can stop that furious charge. Sheridan's men reach the top first, the rest of the line close behind. The "Johnnies" are routed after a short fight, and the guns turned against them as they fly. By night Bragg's army is in full retreat, Chattanooga is safe and free, Grant's lines of communication are assured, and the keys of the State of Georgia in his hands.
[Illustration: Portrait.] General James B. McPherson.
The Union forces in this battle numbered about 60,000, the Confederate half as many; but the latter fought with all the advantage which the mountain and breastworks could give them. They lost nearly 10,000 including 6,500 prisoners. The Union loss was between 5,000 and 6,000--2,200 in the one hour's charge against the centre.
[1864]
There was no halting, no resting. Scarcely had the sounds of yesterday's cannonade died away, when Sherman's already jaded forces were put in motion to the north, to make sure that Burnside was set free at Knoxville; but Longstreet had already raised the siege and started east. By December 6th, Bragg's redoubtable army, which, so recently as September, swore to reconquer Tennessee and to invade Kentucky, was rent in twain, one part of it fleeing to Virginia, the other to the heart of Georgia.
No important military movement occurred in the Centre during this winter of 1863-64. In March Grant was made Lieutenant-General, with command of all the Union armies, Sherman succeeding to the headship of the Mississippi Department. The latter accompanied his superior toward Washington as far as Cincinnati, and there, in a parlor of the Burnet House, the two victorious generals, bending over their maps together, planned in outline that gigantic campaign of 1864-65, which was to end the war; then, grasping one another warmly by the hand, they parted, one starting east, the other south, each to strike at the appointed time his half of the ponderous death-blow.
Sherman pushed out from Chattanooga May 6, 1864, with 100,000 men and 254 cannon. His force comprised the Army of the Cumberland, 60,000, under Thomas; the Army of the Tennessee, 25,000, under Schofield; and the Army of the Ohio, 15,000, under McPherson. Johnston, who had superseded Bragg, lay behind strong works at Dalton, a few miles southeast, with 64,000 men, his base being Atlanta, 80 miles