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The day after the battle of Missionary Ridge I was ordered in the evening to return to Chattanooga, and from the limited supply of stores to be had there outfit my command to march to the relief of Knoxville, where General Burnside was still holding out against the besieging forces of General Longstreet.
I tried to get some position with Burnside, who was fitting out an expedition to North Carolina, even as cook; for I could not pass for the rank and file, and Burnside, as a friend of my friends in Rhode Island, might, I thought, help me. He replied that he had already nine applications for every post at his disposal.
The battle was fought on the 13th of December, and until the night of the 15th General Burnside continued to face Lee on the south bank of the river his bands playing, his flags flying, and nothing indicating an intention of retiring.
Meanwhile General Foster had superseded Burnside, but physical disabilities rendered him incapable of remaining in the field, and then the chief authority devolved on Parke. By this time the transmission of power seemed almost a disease; at any rate it was catching, so, while we were en route to Dandridge, Parke transferred the command to Granger.
So Burnside undertook further manoeuvres. These, however, did not turn out well, and he conceived that a contributing cause lay in the half-heartedness of some of his subordinates. Thereupon he designed against them a defensive or retaliatory move in the shape of an order dismissing from the service of the United States four generals, and relieving from command four others, and one colonel.
Lincoln's estimation, too potent a factor to be opposed, and the result was the superseding of Burnside by Hooker himself, though the President declared in the letter accompanying the appointment that the latter's conduct had been blameworthy.
The Right and Center grand divisions, had arrived in the vicinity of Falmouth several days before; and it had been the design of General Burnside to cross his army over the Rappahannock, seize the heights of Fredericksburgh, and push on toward Richmond, before the enemy could throw a sufficiently strong force in his front, to offer serious resistance.
As he turned from the platform and the guns, all lit again by the orange glare, there came from the right an accession of sound, then high, shrill, and triumphant the Confederate yell. A shout arose from the Horse Artillery. "They're breaking! they're breaking! Burnside, too, is breaking! Yaaaii! Yaaaaiiihh! Yaaaaaiiihhh!"
At Jasper, some ten or twelve miles from Bridgeport, there was a halt. General O. O. Howard had his headquarters there. From this point I telegraphed Burnside to make every effort to secure five hundred rounds of ammunition for his artillery and small-arms. We stopped for the night at a little hamlet some ten or twelve miles farther on. The next day we reached Chattanooga a little before dark.
The corps could be brought at the last moment as a reinforcement to the Army of the Potomac, or it could be thrown on the sea-coast, south of Norfolk, in Virginia or North Carolina, to operate against Richmond from that direction. In fact Burnside and the War Department both thought the 9th corps was intended for such an expedition up to the last moment.
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