FERRY.
HAZEN’S MEN LANDING FROM PONTOON-BOATS AT BROWN'¡ From a war-time sketch.
From a lithograph.
nition and medical supplies. The Union army was short of both, not having ammunition enough for a day’s fighting. . . .
On the 26th Hooker crossed the river at Bridgeport and commenced his eastward march. At 3 o’clock on the morning of the 27th Hazen moved into the stream with his sixty pontoons and eighteen hundred brave and well-equipped men. Smith started enough in advance to be near the river when Hazen should arrive. There are a number of detached spurs of hills north of the river at Chattanooga, back of which is a good road parallel to the stream, sheltered from view from the top of Lookout. It was over this road Smith marched. At 5 o’clock Hazen landed at Brown’s Ferry, surprised the picket-guard and captured most of it. By 7 o’clock the whole of Smith’s force was ferried over and in possession of a height commanding the ferry. This was speedily fortified while a detail was laying the pontoon-bridge. By 10 o’clock the bridge was laid, and our extreme right, now in Lookout Valley, was fortified and connected with the rest of the army. The two bridges over the Tennessee Biver,—a flying one at Chattanooga and the new one at Brown’s Ferry,—with the road north of the river, covered from both the fire and the view of the enemy, made the connection complete. Hooker found but slight obstacles in his way, and on the afternoon of the 28th emerged into Lookout Valley at Wauliatchie. Howard marched on to Brown’s Ferry, while Geary, who commanded a division in the Twelfth Corps, stopped three miles south. The pickets of the enemy on the river below were cut off and soon came in and surrendered.
The river was now open to us from Lookout V alley to Bridgeport. . . . On the way to Chattanooga I had telegraphed back to Nashville for a good sup-
Creek; and west of that, the Baccoon Mountain. Lookout Mountain at its northern end rises almost perpendicularly for some distance, then breaks off in a gentle slope of cultivated fields to near the summit, where it ends in a palisade thirty or more feet in height. On the gently sloping ground, between the upper and lower palisades, there is a single farm-house, which is reached by a wagon road from the valley to the east.
The intrenched line of the enemy commenced on the north end of Missionary Bidge and extended along the crest for some distance south, thence across Chattanooga Valley to Lookout Mountain. Lookout Mountain was also fortified and held by the enemy, who also kept troops in Lookout Valley and on Baccoon Mountain, with pickets extending down the river so as to command the road on the north bank and render it useless to us. In addition to this there was an intrenched line in Chattanooga Valley extending from the river east of the town to Lookout Mountain, to make the investment complete. Besides the fortifications on Missionary Bidge there was a line at the base of the hill, with occasional spurs of rifle-pits half-way up the front. The enemy’s pickets extended out into the valley toward the town so far that the pickets of the two armies could converse. At one point they were separated only by the narrow creek which gives its name to the valley and town, and from which both sides drew water. The Union lines were shorter than those of the enemy.
Thus the enemy, with a vastly superior force, was strongly fortified to the east, south, and west, and commanded the river below. Practically the Army of the Cumberland was besieged. The enemy, with his cavalry north of the river, had stopped the passing of a train loaded with ammu-
on tlie right by the 36th Indiana. Fort Negley is. at the end of the line of works seen in the middle-ground, Lookout Mountain being in the distance.
The picture shows the intrenchments occupied by three divisions of Thomas’s corps. In the foreground is seen Fort Grose, manned on the left of the picture by the 24th Ohio and
CHATTANOOGA.
BY ULYSSES S. GRANT, GENERAL, U. S. A. Commander of the Union Army at the Battle of Chattanooga.
JACKSON, MISS., JULY 8 TO 17, 1863.
Immediately upon the fall of Vicksburg all the Confederate troops in Mississippi not included in the surrender were concentrated at Jackson under General Joseph E. Johnston. Sherman marched against Jackson, and, after withstanding a vigorous siege of seven days, Johnston evacuated on the 16th. In September, Sherman’s and McPherson’s corps moved eastward to reinforce Rose-erans’s army, which at the close of the month was practically shut up in-Chattanooga Valley, with the Tennessee River in the rear and the Confederates strongly posted on commanding heights in front. Grant reached Chattanooga late in October, and assumed command. Rosecrans was relieved from the Army of the Cumberland by General George H. Thomas.
. . . Chattanooga is on the south hank of the Tennessee, where that river runs nearly due west. It is at the northern end of a valley five or six miles in width through which runs Chattanooga Creek. To the east of the valley is Missionary Ridge, rising from five to eight hundred feet above the creek, and terminating somewhat abruptly a half-mile or more before reaching the Tennessee. On the west of the valley is Lookout Mountain, 2200 feet above tide-water. Just below the town, the Tennessee makes a turn to the south and runs to the base .of Lookout Mountain, leaving no level ground between the mountain and river. The Memphis and Charleston railroad passes this point, where the mountain stands nearly perpendicular. East of Missionary Ridge flows the South Chickamauga River; west of Lookout Mountain is Lookout
NARRATIVE OF EVENTS LEADING־ TO CHATTANOOGA.
PORT HUDSON, DEC., 1862, TO JULY 8, 1863.
General Nathaniel P. Banks relieved General Butler commanding the Department of the Gulf in December, 1862, and acting under orders to cooperate with General McClernand’s column on the upper Mississippi, he sent a detachment under General Cuvier Grover by water (under convoy of Farragut’s gun-boats) to take possession of Baton Rouge. The Confederates evacuated the town December 16,and Banks’s army occupied it as a base of operations against Port Hudson. Several attempts were made to flank the latter during the winter; and all failing, it was invested in May by a land column on the east. After an unsuccessful assault on May 27, which cost 1850 men, siege operations were commenced which resulted in its surrender July 8.
HELENA, JULY 4, 1863.
While Grant was marching on Vicksburg, General E. Kirby Smith, who had succeeded to the command of the Trans-Mississippi Department in February, 1863, organized an expedition at Little Rock to attack Helena as a means of relieving Vicksburg. The force was led by Generals T. H. Holmes and Sterling Price, who stormed the works, and were repulsed with heavy loss on July 4, the day of the fall of Vicksburg.
LITTLE ROCK, SEPT. 10, 1863.
The fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson led to the reinforcement of the Union army in Missouri and Arkansas, where General John M. Schofield was in command. In August, Schofield sent General Frederick M. Steele from Helena against Little Rock. The Confederates under Price abandoned Little Rock without serious fighting on September 10.