tember had crossed Sand Mountain, and occupied the valley between it and the Lookout Range. Each of these corps had crossed the range at points opposite their crossings of the river, and, though in the same valley, were thirty-five miles apart. Crittenden, instead of crossing, turned to his left, and marched up the river bank toward Chattanooga, and crossed into the Lookout Valley by a pass near the town. On the 7th the next stage of the movement began, viz: the crossing of Lookout Range, in order to pass to the enemy's rear, and, by endangering his supplies, compel him to abandon Chattanooga.

As soon as Bragg's spy-glasses on Lookout Mountain, at Chattanooga, disclosed this movement, the order to evacuate the place was given. Shelbyville and Tullahoma were repeated, and on the morning of September 9th Crittenden marched in and took the place without the discharge of a gun. Strategy had again triumphed. The door was unlocked. The fall of Chattanooga was accomplished. The plan of the campaign had been carried out. successfully. The North was electrified. The South utterly discomfited. Of the fall of Chattanooga, which, as we have shown, was but the continuation of the plan of the Tullahoma campaign, and was predicted by Garfield, even to the manner of its accomplishment, in his argument to Rosecrans in favor of an advance, Pollard, the Confederate historian, writes:

"Thus we were maneuvered out of this strategic stronghold. Two-thirds of our niter beds were in this region, and a large proportion of the coal which supplied our foundries. It abounded in the necessaries of life. It was one of the strongest mountain countries in the world; so full of lofty mountains that it has been not inaptly called the Switzerland of America. As the possession of Switzerland opened the door to the invasion of Italy, Germany, and France, so the possession of East Tennessee gave easy access to Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama."

It is easy to see that behind this masterly strategy there was a masterly strategist. That man was Rosecrans's chief of staff. What had become of Bragg's army of fifty thousand men? Rosecrans thought it was in full retreat. Halleck, Commander

in-chief, telegraphed from Washington, on the 11th, that information had been received that Bragg's army was being used to reinforce Lee, a certain indication of retreat. The fact was that Lee was reinforcing Bragg. Halleck also telegraphed on the same day that reinforcements were coming to Rosecrans, and that it would be decided whether he should more further into Georgia and Alabama. This telegram completed the delusion of Rosecrans. He believed Bragg was many miles to the south. The campaign planned by Garfield had been completed. But Rosecrans made a fatal blunder. Instead of marching the corps of Thomas and McCook up the Lookout Valley to Chattanooga, and uniting them with Crittenden's, he ordered the crossing of the range as a flank movement to be continued in order to intercept Bragg's supposed retreat. Accordingly, on the 11th and 12th, Thomas recommenced to push over Lookout Mountain through a pass, twenty-five miles south-east of Chattanooga; and thirty-five miles beyond Thomas, McCook was doing the same thing.

With the Union army thus divided, Bragg was waiting his terrible opportunity. Instead of being in full retreat, many miles away, his entire army occupied Pigeon Ridge along the valley on the southern side of Lookout Range, into which Thomas and McCook must descend from the Mountain passes. Down the center of this valley runs a little river, the CHICKAMAUGA. On the southern side of this stream, just opposite the pass from which Thomas's corps of eighteen thousand devoted men would emerge, was concentrated the entire rebel army, waiting to destroy the isolated parts of the Army of the Cumberland in detail. The region occupied by Bragg was covered with dense forests, and he was further concealed by the low heights of Pigeon Ridge. When Thomas's corps should have debouched from the pass through Lookout Range, and crossed the Chickamauga to ascend Pigeon Ridge, it was to be overwhelmed. Then McCook and Crittenden, sixty-five miles apart, would be separately destroyed. It fortunately happened that General Negley's division descended from the gap on the 12th, and crossed the Chickamauga several miles in advance of the main body of Thomas's corps. Unexpectedly,

finding the enemy in great force on the opposite ridge, he swiftly withdrew, checked Thomas from further advance, and enabled the corps to take up an impregnable position in the gap through Lookout Range.

Thus foiled, Bragg then resolved to strike Crittenden, but eventually failed in this also. These failures gave the alarm. Bragg's army was not ready for flight but for fight. It was now a matter of life and death for Rosecrans to concentrate his army before battle. Couriers were dispatched at break-neck speed to McCook, sixty-five miles away, and to Crittenden who had pushed on twenty miles beyond Chattanooga, in imaginary pursuit of Bragg. In some absolutely inexplicable way, Bragg failed for > four days to make the attack. In those precious days, from September 13th to 17th, Garfield worked night and day, as chief of staff, to reach the scattered divisions, explore the shortest roads through those lofty mountains, and hasten that combination which alone could save the army from destruction. The suspense was terrible. But Bragg lost his opportunity by delaying too long. Heavy reinforcements for him were arriving, and he thought he was growing stronger. On the 17th and 18th Bragg was found to be moving his army up the valley toward Chattanooga, thus extending his right far beyond Rosecrans's left, with the evident object of throwing his army upon the roads between the Union army and Chattanooga. To meet this, the Union army was moved in the same direction.

These movements of both armies up the valley, Bragg being south of the Chickamauga and Rosecrans north, were continued until the position was almost south of Chattanooga, instead of south-west. Parallel with our army, and immediately in its rear, were two roads leading to Chattanooga,-the one immediately in the rear known as the Lafayette or Rossville road; the other a little further back, as the Dry Valley road. At the junction of these roads, half way to Chattanooga, itself eight miles distant, was the town of Rossville. These roads were the prizes for which was to be fought one of the most bloody and awful battles of the war. The loss of either was equally fatal, but the main Rossville road,

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being the most exposed, was the principal object of the enemy's Ettacks. The efforts of the enemy at first were to overlap or turn the left flank. This would have given them the Rossville road. Failing in this they drove the center back, the center and left turning like a door upon the hinge at the extreme left, until the line of battle was formed directly across the roads instead of parallel with them. This was accomplished during the second day's fight.

General Thomas commanded the left wing, Crittenden the center, and McCook the right. The front of the army, facing almost east, was ranged up and down the valley from north to south, with the river in front and the roads in their rear. The whole valley was covered with dense forests, except where a farm had been made, and was full of rocky hills and ridges. So much concealed was one part of the valley from another, that the rebel army of fifty thousand men was formed in line of battle within a mile of the union lines on the same side of the river, without either army suspecting the other's presence.

Such was the situation on the morning of September 19th, 1863. The world knows of the awful conflict which followed. General Garfield was located at Widow Glenn's house, in the rear of the right wing. This was Rosecrans's head-quarters. General Thomas located himself at Kelley's farm-house in the rear of the left wing. For three nights General Garfield had not slept as many hours. Every anxious order, for the concentration of the army, had come from him; every courier and aid during those days and nights of suspense reported to him in person; before him lay his maps; each moment since the thirteenth he had known the exact position of the different corps and divisions of our vast army. Looking for the attack at any moment, it was necessary to constantly know the situation of the enemy among those gloomy mountains and sunless forests. When the red tide of battle rolled through the valley, each part of the line was ignorant of all the rest of the line. The right wing could not even guess the direction of the left wing. The surrounding forests and the hills shut in the center so completely that it did not know where either of

the wings were. Every division commander simply obeyed the orders from head-quarters, took his position, and fought. The line of battle was formed in the night. To misunderstand orders and take the wrong position was easy. But so lucid were the commands, so particular the explanations which came from the man at head-quarters, that the line of battle was perfect. Many battles of the war were fought with but few orders from head-quarters; some without any concerted plan at all. Pittsburgh Landing, of the latter sort; Gettysburg, of the former sort. At Gettysburg, the commander-in-chief, General Meade, had little to do with the battle. The country was open, the enemy's whereabouts was visible, and each division commander placed his troops just where they could do the most good. Not so at Chickamauga. No battle of the war required so many and such incessant orders from headquarters. The only man in the Union army who knew the whole situation of our troops was General Garfield. Amid the forests, ravines and hills along the five miles of battle front, the only possible way to maintain a unity of plan and a concert of action was for the man at head-quarters to know it all. General Garfield knew the entire situation as if it had been a chess-board, and each division of the army a man. At a touch, by the player, the various brigades and divisions assumed their positions.

Every thing thus far said has been of the combatants. But there were others on the battle-field. There were the inhabitants of this valley, non-combatants, inviolate by the rules of civilized warfare. Of this sort were the rustic people at Widow Glenn's, where General Garfield passed the most memorable days of his life. The house was a Tennessee cabin. Around it lay a little farm with small clearings. Here the widow lived with her three children, one a young man, the others a girl and boy of tender age. As General Garfield took up his head-quarters there it is said to have reminded him powerfully of his own childhood home with his toiling mother. All the life of these children had been passed in this quiet valley. Of the outside world they knew little, and cared less. They did not know the meaning of the word war. They were ignorant and poverty-stricken, but peaceful. Shut in by the