While these events were taking place General Sherman was making his way eastward from Memphis. His troops were repairing the railroad as they advanced. They reached Tuscumbia, in Alabama, when a man came to him with a note from General Grant: "Drop all work on the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, and hurry eastward with all possible despatch towards Bridgeport, till you meet further orders from me."

The man who brought it had floated down the river in a canoe, over Muscle Shoals, and had been fired at by the Confederate scouts.

By the aid of the gunboats and steamers the troops were ferried across the river. The country was infested with guerillas, who seized two of General Sherman's clerks, stripped off their coats, tied them to the tail of a wagon, and drove rapidly away. General Sherman had no cavalry to send in pursuit. He knew that the guerillas were sons or neighbors of the citizens of the town. He therefore seized three of the prominent men of Florence, and told them how his clerks had been captured.

“These guerillas are your own sons or your neighbors; you know their haunts," he said, "and unless the two men are returned within twentyfour hours, I'll have you tied up and treated as they have been."(1)

The frightened citizens saw that General Sherman was not a man to be trifled with, and messengers rode in hot haste in search of the guerillas, bringing back the two men whom they had seized.

On the night of November 14th General Sherman reached Chattanooga in advance of his troops, who were making long marches in their eagerness to help the Army of the Cumberland.

NOTES TO CHAPTER XXI.

(1) Bragg's Report.

(2) Grant, Personal Memoirs," p. 18.

(3) Idem, p. 24.

(4) J. S. Fullerton, Century Magazine, April, 1887, p. 137.
(5) Idem.

(6) Grant," Personal Memoirs," p. 25.

(1) Hazen," A Narrative of Military Service," p. 155.

(*) General Howard, National Tribune.

(9) Pollard, "The Lost Cause,” p. 436.

(10) Watkins," History of the First Tennessee Regiment," p. 100.

(1) "Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman," vol. i., p. 338.

(12) General Howard, National Tribune.

(13) "Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman," vol. i.,

p. 388.

A

CHAPTER XXII.

LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN AND MISSIONARY RIDGE.

T General Bragg's headquarters on Missionary Ridge, on the evening of November 3d, Jefferson Davis's plan for Longstreet's movement to drive Burnside out of Eastern Tennessee was unfolded by General Bragg to his officers. Burnside had about twenty thousand men. Longstreet would have about fifteen thousand infantry and artillery, and five thousand cavalry. General Jones, who was at Abingdon, in Virginia, was to move west, and between them Burnside would be ground as fine as meal between two millstones. It was a fascinating plan. It was more than one hundred miles from Chattanooga to Knoxville, but Longstreet could move his troops rapidly a portion of the way by rail. Jones could advance from Abingdon by rail, and they would make quick work of it. Bragg would keep the Army of the Cumberland besieged in Chattanooga the while, and when Burnside was crushed would reunite his forces and close around Grant.

"The success of the plan depends on rapid movements and sudden blows," were the words of Bragg to Longstreet. "The country will subsist your command. You are to drive Burnside out of East Tennessee; or, better, capture and destroy him."()

General Bragg left out an important factor in his calculations-the locomotives and cars. He had not looked ahead to ascertain how many locomotives and cars he would need, or where he could obtain them. The single line of railroad leading to Atlanta was taxed to its utmost in bringing supplies. The engines and cars were wearing out, and so was the road. The Confederacy could conscript men into military service, but it could not find men to build locomotives. As the war went on, it became more and more manifest that it was a struggle between two systems of labor, between ignorance and knowledge, between weakness and power. The soldiers of the Confederacy might be just as virtuous personally, as brave, as able to stand hardship, as soldiers of the Union; but the people beneath the Stars and Stripes could file iron to a hair's-breadth; could build machines

The view is from the Union signal-station, looking towards Missionary Ridge. The Confederate camps are beyond the belt of timber. Sherman crossed the Tennessee in the bend of the river at the left. The eastern slope of Lookout Mountain is seen at the right.

to do the work of human hands, which the men beneath the flag of the Confederacy could not do. Slavery degraded labor; freedom ennobled it. The men who brought about the conspiracy against the Union to overthrow the Government despised mechanics. The laboring men of the North had been called "greasy mechanics" and "mud-sills" on the floor of Congress. But the men who shovelled coal into flaming forges, who tended tilt-hammers, who filed iron, were turning out locomotives by the hundred and cars by the thousand. They had made it possible for General Hooker and the Eleventh and Twelfth corps to be transported from the Rapidan to the Tennessee, with all their baggage, artillery, and horses, in seven days-beginning the journey of one thousand miles in twenty-four hours after the issuing of the order.

On the morning of November 4th Longstreet withdrew his corps from Lookout Mountain, and marched to the railroad behind Missionary Ridge, where he waited till the 11th before a locomotive and a train of cars could be procured to transport his supplies.

General Grant learned from his scouts on the fifth that Longstreet was moving towards East Tennessee.

"I will endeavor to bring him back," was his message to Burnside. He proposed to attack Bragg, which he believed would compel him to order Longstreet to return.

"Attack the northern end of Missionary Ridge with all the force you can bring to bear," was his order to Thomas. "If you have not artillery horses, mules must be taken from the teams and horses from the ambulances; or, if necessary, officers must be dismounted and their horses taken."

"I am absolutely unable to move," said Thomas.(*)

How hard it is to be helpless! General Grant could not advance against Bragg for want of horses, nor could he render assistance to Burnside, who must be left to confront the forces gathering to overwhelm him. He must wait for more horses and for Sherman's arrival before he could take the aggressive.

It was the energy of Napoleon-his quick movements, his forethought about provisions and supplies, his far-seeing, and his ability to infuse his own indomitable energy into his men-which gave him so many victories. The Northern States were feeling General Grant's energy. Carpenters in Ohio were building bridges. Locomotive-builders in Philadelphia were hurrying to complete locomotives. Steamboat captains from New Orleans to St. Louis and Pittsburg were under his orders. Two hundred thousand soldiers were obeying his commands-not all at Chattanooga, but