Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 19, 2025
He knew that General Bragg was preparing to advance, but thought he would not attempt the invasion of Kentucky before attacking him. He therefore looked for a great battle somewhere in Middle Tennessee, and concentrated his forces for that event.
The corps under Major-General George H. Thomas stood its ground, while Rosecrans, with Crittenden and McCook, returned to Chattanooga. Thomas returned also, but later, and with his troops in good order. Bragg followed and took possession of Missionary Ridge, overlooking Chattanooga.
In short, to such a pass of freedom had Mr. Bragg, in common with a large class of his countrymen, carried his notions, that he had really begun to imagine liberty was all means and no end. "In sooth, thou wast in very gracious fooling last night, when thou spokest of Pigrogromotus, of the Vapians passing the equinoctial of Queubus; 't was very good i' faith."
"I've known a good many rebel Generals, unt some of them ain't really bad fellers, outside of their rebelness. But old Bragg is a born devil. He has no more heart than a rattlesnake. He actually loves cruelty. He'd rather kill men than not. I've seen plenty of officers who were entirely too willing to shoot men for little or nothing.
As the retreat of Bragg transferred the theatre of operations back to Tennessee, orders were now issued for a concentration of Buell's army at Bowling Green, with a view to marching it to Nashville, and my division moved to that point without noteworthy incident. I reached Bowling Green with a force much reduced by the losses sustained in the battle of Perryville and by sickness.
At two the next morning Giles Smith's brigade dropped down the Tennessee in boats and surprised the extreme north pickets placed by Bragg at the mouth of the South Chickamauga to cover the right of the Ridge. By noon Sherman's men were over the Tennessee ready to cooperate with Thomas.
The advance of this strong reenforcement was promptly reported to Bragg, who saw at a glance that unless it could be stopped there was every prospect that his Chattanooga victims would escape. He accordingly determined upon a very bold but very dangerous move.
Now on the defensive, and in such a deep and sticky soil, they would have a great advantage and his generals agreed with him in waiting. Dick spent much of this day in riding with Colonel Winchester along their lines. There was some talk about Bragg retreating, but the boy, a veteran in everything but years, knew the ominous signs. Bragg had no notion of retreating.
I told what I had read in the paper: that our country rivalled Dickens's in queer names, and that it wasn't for a land that had Boggs and Bigger and Bragg for governors, and Stubbs, Snoggles, Scroggs, and Pugh among its respectable citizens, to accuse Dickens of caricature. I turned, a little tremulously, I confess, to "him," saying,
"We've got to win here," said Dick. "If we don't, I'm thinking the cause of the Union will be more than doubtful. We don't seem to have the generals in the East that we have in the West. Our leaders hang on here and they don't overestimate the enemy." "That's so," said Pennington. "Now, I wonder what 'Pap' Thomas is doing." "He's somewhere in Tennessee, I suppose, watching Bragg," said Dick.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking