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A STREET IN CHATTANOOGA IN 1864.
and presented my letter. He read it, and then burst out in angry abuse of the Government at Washington. He had not been sustained, he said; his requests had been ignored, his plans thwarted. Both Stanton and Halleck had done all they could, he declared, to prevent his success.
"General Rosecrans," I said, "I have no authority to listen to complaints against the Government. I was sent here for the purpose of finding out what the Government could do to aid you, and have no right to confer with you on other matters."
He at once quieted down and explained his situation to me. He had reached Chattanooga, he said, on the 10th, with the last of Crittenden's (the Twenty-first) Corps, the town having been evacuated the day before by the Confederates. As all the reports brought in seemed to indicate that the Confederates under Bragg were in full retreat towards Rome, Georgia, Crittenden had immediately started in pursuit, and had gone as far as Ringgold. On the night before (September 11th), it had seemed evident that Bragg had abandoned his retreat on Rome, and behind the curtain of the woods and hills had returned.
This was a serious matter for Rosecrans, if true, for at that moment his army was scattered over a line about fifty miles long, extending from Chattanooga on the north to Alpine on the south. This wide separation of the corps had been necessary, Rosecrans told me, because of the character of the country, there being no way for an army to get through but by the gaps in the mountain, and these were far apart. He pointed out to me the positions on the map: Crittenden, with the Twenty-first Corps, was in the valley of the West Chickamauga, near a place known as Lee and Gordon's Mills; Thomas, who commanded the Fourteenth Corps, was perhaps twenty-five miles south of Chattanooga, at Stevens's Gap. having crossed his troops over Lookout Mountain; while McCook, with the Twentieth Corps, was at Alpine, fully thirty-five miles south of Crittenden. The reserve, under Gordon Granger, was still north of the Tennessee, but rapidly coming up.
AT GENERAL THOMAS'S HEADQUARTERS.
The next day (the 13th) I left Chattanooga with Rosecrans and his staff for Thomas's headquarters at Stevens's Gap. We found everything progressing favorably there. The movements for the concentration of the three corps were going forward with energy. Scouts were coming in constantly, who reported that the enemy had withdrawn from the basin
