Civil Warriors

Early in September 1861 the French princes boarded the steamer Africa for their voyage to the United States. If Philippe found the passage rather dull, his arrival in New York more than compensated for it, for he and his companions lost no time in examining the teeming new country and taking a close look at the North’s first efforts to build an army large enough to put down the rebellion in the Confederate states.

In his first entry, dated 15 September 1861, Philippe wrote:

The day before yesterday, the 13th, we set foot on New World soil, a happy moment, for nothing is more agreeable than the start of a long trip, and in my mind’s eye the American continent already opens before me with its wide open spaces and its societies so curious to study.

It is hard for a new arrival to a country to discern the traits truly characteristic of the sights that surround him. Insignificant details of of the scene distract his attention before he can grasp the whole. The activity and movement that animates the Hudson is not as great as that of the Thames, but then the large channels that penetrate the heart of the triple cities of New York, Brooklyn, and Jersey City can hardly be compared to the reeking estuary that passes beneath the bridges of London.

Furthermore, the things that should be the same on both sides of the Atlantic are the things most likely to have a different appearance. Even before debarking, we were struck by the stange forms of the steamboats that crisscrossed the river around us in all directions. The ones that look like a rounded walnut shell, fitted with two great paddle wheels and topped off by a smokestack out of all proportion to the boat’s dimensions — those are the local transports. Others come from Albany on the Hudson: huge chateaux of several levels whose design is well-known in Europe and which can be recognized from afar by the sound of their steam-powered calliopes, for the grateful Americans have introduced that powerful agent of their fortune everywhere and even admit it into the realm of art. Lastly, enormous ferryboats continually transport pedestrians and carriages back and forth between the great commercial cities that surround us.

(Continued)

As you might imagine, I’m inclined to assign Grant primary responsibility for the false position occupied by the Army of the James. To me, when you know that you have a senior subordinate of limited combat experience, it does not make sense to hand him an assignment fraught with the geographical puzzle presented by the Bermuda Hundred position. Rather, you go with something more in line with the subordinate’s abilities.

In this instance, an attack on Petersburg by way of City Point would have been a lot more straightforward. And because Petersburg lay athwart Richmond’s principal line of communication with the South, its capture — even its attempted capture — would have yielded the benefit Grant principally sought; namely the diversion of thousands of Confederate troops that would otherwise have gone to assist Lee.

The map below will help me illustrate my thoughts.

(Click map for much larger image – 1 Mb)

I say that an attack on Petersburg would have been more straightforward. I do not say it would have been easy. True, Petersburg in May 1864 was already fortified, thanks to the efforts of one Captain Charles Dimmock, who in 1862-1863 had employed 4,000 troops and as many as a thousand slaves to ring the city south of the Apomattox River with fifty-five battery emplacements connected by entrenchments. But because this “Dimmock Line” was bereft of troops, its existence would actually have worked to Butler’s advantage. A rapid advance across the roughly eight miles between City Point and Petersburg would have given the Army of the James control of the town and a ready-made fortification belt with which to defend it.

The real difficulty, I think, would have been to maintain a secure supply line with City Point. Although the Appomattox River was navigable as far upstream as Petersburg, its width was so narrow that it could easily be interdicted unless Federal troops controlled the banks on either side. The more practical solution was to use the Appomattox River and Swift Run, immediately to the north, as a defensive barrier from Confederate thrusts from that direction and to concentrate on holding the Petersburg fortifications and the railroad connecting the town with City Point. With only 33,000 troops, a continuous defensive line would have been impracticable. The best solution, it seems to me, would have been to hold City Point and Petersburg in force, shove as many supplies into the latter position as possible before the Confederates arrived in substantial numbers, and then invite a siege.

Such an operation would hardly have been fatal. To begin with, the Confederates would surely have had inferior numbers and would have been been obliged to use exterior lines, meaning in turn that to surround Butler they would have had to spread out so thinly as to invite defeat by a sudden offensive foray. More likely they would have opted — as Grant later did — for a quasi-siege, which would have given Butler scope for maneuver if it became necessary. Nor would it likely have been a static siege, for with Petersburg in Union hands, two vital railroads — the Southside and the Petersburg-Weldon Railroads — would have been choked off, to say nothing of the City Point and Norfolk and Petersburg Railroads. And as long as City Point remained in Union hands, reinforcements by the thousands could come to assist Butler’s force if necessary.

What I’m suggesting, really, is a deliberate re-creation, in much milder form, of the situation confronting the Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga in the autumn of 1863, a situation which William F. Smith had clearly understood and in which he had distinguished himself.

An ambitious plan? Surely. But not difficult to execute. All it required was a clear set of instructions to guide Butler. Butler, in my opinion, had the intelligence, administrative ability, and fortitude to have pulled it off.

But let’s say he didn’t. At a minimum, he could have seized City Point in force, as he did historically, and then kept Petersburg under such heavy pressure as to force the Confederate forces otherwise bound for Lee to halt and hold him at bay. And all the while he would have had his army squarely between the enemy and his base, thereby eliminating the vexing problem, which Grant bequeathed him, of simultaneously shielding his base, advancing at right angles to his base, and trying to cover the rear of his main body.

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6 – Part 7 – Part 8 – Part 9 – Part 10 (coming)

Well, it’s really time for me to knock out the essay on the Grant-Butler relationship, promised to Steve Woodworth at the beginning of the summer. I let myself be distracted by the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict. Then I thought I might work on it over vacation — fat chance! More recently I’ve gotten embroiled with the upcoming autumn elections, and to that end, “reactivated” a blog I briefly maintained last year called The Ohio Twenty-first (named for the 21st Ohio General Assemby District in which I live.)

None of this is wholly a loss. I often find that immersing myself in current wars or political affairs heightens my ability to appreciate the past. It loses that historical pageant veneer and becomes a little more real.

Be that as it may . . .

I left off on the eve of the Bermuda Hundred campaign. Butler’s offensive jumped off on May 5, 1864, a day after the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River to confront Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Without meaning to be a Butler apologist, this strikes me as a creditable feat on his part. His Army of the James had just been activated, a number of high-ranking commanders had just recently joined it, including both of his corps commanders, William F. Smith and Quincy Gillmore. Butler had not had time to establish a rapport with either man, especially Gillmore, who arrived from South Carolina just days before the offensive began. With him came about 10,000 troops, denominated the X Corps, which were ravaged by the diseases endemic to the coastal marshlands, unrecovered from their sea voyage in cramped transports, and unfamiliar with the country in which they were to operate thenceforth.

Furthermore, Butler had to organize a fleet of over fifty transports, accompanied by U.S. Navy gunboats under Acting Rear Admiral Samuel P. Lee, commander of the North Atlantic Blockading Aquadron. He had to execute a waterborne feint up the York River, to deceive the enemy as to his real destination, and then, on the lunge up the James River estuary, deposit garrisons at two points — Wilson’s Wharf and Fort Powahatan (named for an abandoned Confederate earthwork) — where the stream was narrow enough to be vulnerable to artillery fire if the Confederates got control of them. All in all, it was a very creditable performance.

(Continued)

The princes of the House of Orleans playing dominoes with other members of McClellan’s staff, May 3, 1862. Philippe, Comte de Paris, is in the middle, flanked on his right by his brother, the Duc du Chartres, and his uncle, the Prince de Joinville.

In May 1979 I attended a reception honoring General James M. Gavin, who commanded the 82nd Airborne Division in 1944-1945 and went on to become the U.S. Army’s Chief of Research and Development in the 1950s. I was then a 19-year-old college sophomore. Gavin was 72 and had just published On to Berlin, a memoir of his service during World War II.

By some fluke, General Gavin and I got to talking and I happened to mention my interest in the Civil War. That was a favorite subject of his as well, and with some enthusiasm he told me that in the early 1960s, while John F. Kennedy’s ambassador to France, he had met and befriended Henri, Comte de Paris, the grandson of Philippe, Comte de Paris, who served on General George B. McClellan’s personal staff from September 1861 until July 1862.

Gavin was informed that while in the United States, Philippe kept a detailed journal. Intrigued, Gavin borrowed the journal and had a typescript made of it, thinking that his publisher, Harper & Row, might be interested in having it translated and published as a book. Harper & Row, however, regarded it as “a pig in a poke” — since in its untranslated form its historical value and sales potential could not be assessed. Gavin then set aside the project.

He still had the typescript in 1979 and, a few days after we spoke, I wrote him to ask if I could have a copy and see about pursuing the project myself. Gavin checked with his literary agent, who saw no problem with the idea, and soon a 556-page typed, single-spaced manuscript landed on my front porch. It was entitled simply, “Voyage En Amerique [Travels in America], 1861-1862.”

(Continued)

Detail from the monument to the Roanoke Island Freedmens Colony, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, Manteo, North Carolina

If you decide to sell your books at meetings of CivilWar Round Tables, pick CWRTs that meet at posh country clubs.

At least, that was my experience at last evening’s appearance at the Outer Banks CWRT.

In all seriousness, my hosts were very gracious, and I had a terrific time.

Off in a few minutes to begin a two-day drive to the North Carolina Outer Banks.  I’m going mainly to visit friends, but I’ve also been asked to speak at the Outer Banks Civil War Round Table.  That’ll be Tuesday night.  Per the CWRT’s request, I’ll be giving an overview of the Virginia campaign of May-June 1864; i.e., the Overland Campaign plus the various subsidiary operations, especially Bermuda Hundred.  Which will give me a chance to talk a bit about the Grant-Butler relationship.  Oh, and maybe sell a few copies of And Keep Moving On.

Last evening I gave a talk on this subject before the Central Ohio Civil War Round Table. People enjoyed the PowerPoint presentation, which used a lot of images, but afterward a couple of them hinted that they wished I’d supplied handouts so that they could have a permanent record of my main points.

Well, there are two ways to get those. The first is to purchase one of the battlefield guides that Brooks, Steve and I have developed: each one contains a standard section that deals with the general principles involved in battlefield study.

The second is to visit a web page I developed many years ago when we were drafting the first guide books. It doesn’t exactly replicate the talk I gave, but it does supply the basics.

In connection with my series on the Grant-Butler relationship, I mentioned a presentation I gave at the Library of Congress symposium in November 2002. (Steve Woodworth, by the way, was on the same panel.) Entitled The Partnership That Wasn’t: Grant and Meade during the Overland Campaign, the presentation is still online as a cybercast. Unfortunately, the camera was focused on me the entire time, so the cybercast shows nothing of the PowerPoint presentation I used. Worse — at least at the time — the room’s set-up did not allow me to control the presentation myself. Thus, every time I wanted to advance the presentation I had to say “Next slide,” which in practice the phrase meant “click the mouse” so as to reveal the next image or bit of text that might appear within a single slide.

However, that glitch may now prove advantageous, because I’ve placed the presentation online. You are welcome to download and view it. (But please do not make any further use of it.) If you don’t have PowerPoint loaded on your computer, you can download a free viewer from Microsoft.

Once you’ve downloaded and opened the presentation, you should have little trouble synchronizing it with my talk.

Here are the links you need:

Cybercast – I’m the first speaker; my talk begins at the 4:30 mark, after the panelists’ introductions are performed, and concludes at the 31:49 mark. You’ll need Realplayer (available for free) to view.

PowerPoint presentation – left-click your mouse to download. It’s zipped but still 6.0 Mb, so if you’ve got dial-up, you might want to mow your lawn and clean out your gutters while you wait.

PowerPoint viewer – available at the Microsoft Download Center.

In the past day or two I’ve found myself reflecting a lot on the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, particularly the fact that civilian casualties far outstrip combatant casualties and indeed, civilians seem to be not just targets (inadvertent or deliberate) but in some cases human shields. This has led me to return to a long-standing interest of mine: the problem of moral judgment in war.

There are a number of key milestones in the development of principles governing the just conduct of war, but of enormous importance was the promulgation of General Orders No. 100 during the Civil War. What follows is part 1 of a six-part series I did last year on G.O. 100 and Francis Lieber, the German-American jurist who, for all practical purposes, wrote what justly became known as “Lieber’s Code.” The other parts are on an earlier platform of Blog Them Out of the Stone Age. If you choose to read the whole thing (and I hope you will), please come back here to write any comments.

Some years ago, Robert Fulghum wrote a simple credo that became famous: “All I ever really needed to know I learned in kindergarten.” I suspect that many Americans of my generation could say, with equal sincerity and even greater accuracy, “All I ever really needed to know I learned from Star Trek .”

My next entry in the Encyclopedia of War and American Society concerns General Orders 100, better known as Lieber’s Code. Published by the U.S. War Department in the middle of the Civil War, General Orders 100 has the distinction of being the world’s first official set of ethical guidelines concerning military conduct in the field. When I first began thinking about the entry, a snatch of Star Trek dialogue ran through my head. “There are rules, even in war.”

At first the words were comforting. It took me a moment to think of the context. The phrase was spoken by Leonard McCoy, chief medical officer of the Enterprise. That checked — of the three principal characters in the series, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, McCoy was the one who most closely embodied humanity.

But then I realized that the episode in which he uttered them was “Day of the Dove.” In it, an alien entity that feeds on violent emotion provokes combat between the Enterprise crew and a crew of Klingons and then harvests sustenance from the resulting fury and hatred. The “rules even in war” utterance occurs at a point where McCoy, treating a crewman wounded in a melee, looks down at the hapless man and snarls, “Those filthy butchers. There are rules, even in war. You don’t keep hacking at a man after he’s down.”

There may be rules, even in war. But here the rules are invoked not to restrain the violence, but to justify a sense that the enemy is demonic and restraint would be folly. A bit later in the episode, when Kirk and Spock first awake to the reality that a malevolent entity has created the crisis and forms the real threat, McCoy is outraged to hear them suggest the wisdom of a truce with the Klingons.

“A truce?! Are you serious? I’ve got men in sick bay, some of them dying, atrocities committed on their persons. And you talk about making peace with these fiends? Why, if our backs were turned they’d jump us in a minute. And you know what Klingons do to prisoners. Slave labor. Death planets. Experiments. While you’re talking they’re planning attacks. This is a fight to the death, and we’d better start trying to win it!”

In the episode, Spock’s logic and Kirk’s determination carry the day. A truce is, heroically, arranged, and together the Federation and Klingon crewmen literally laugh the alien entity off the ship. But thinking again on “rules, even in war,” I couldn’t help but wonder if McCoy’s exploitation of the phrase to legitimate slaughter carried the real truth of the drama. When I picked up General Orders 100 and read them again, it was with new eyes.
Left: McCoy in a different episode (“A Piece of the Action”) cradles a weapon he would dearly love to have had available in “Day of the Dove.”

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6

(Hat tip to Jesus’ General)

I can’t pass on to the Bermuda Hundred campaign itself without relaying the weird spin that Adam Badeau, Grant’s wartime military secretary and postwar authorized biographer, placed on the Grant-Butler relationship.

Early in volume 2 of his Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, Badeau has the new general in chief visiting Butler at Fort Monroe. He has already selected the line by which Butler’s force would operate, that is, up the James River toward Richmond, but is “gratified” to discover the Butler has independently arrived at the same plan. It looks to be a case of great minds thinking alike. But two hundred pages later Badeau has to deflect any suspicion that Grant had a hand in botching the Bermuda Hundred operation.

This part cracks me up. Badeau insists that Grant’s orders to Butler were in no way vague — “all was definite and absolute” — and when the plain language of the orders includes phrases like “I do not say how your work is to be done, but simply lay down what, and trust to you and those under you for doing it well,” (244) why that’s not vague, it’s a compliment to Butler: “In this way Grant had already treated Sherman.” (245)

Of course, Sherman was Grant’s most trusted partner in command and Butler was, well, someone Grant would have preferred not to have as a partner at all:

If the general-in-chief had been allowed his choice, Butler would not have commanded the army of the James. Grant left the West, fully intending and prepared to remove that officer, whom he knew only by reputation, as one who had stepped into the highest grade in the army at the beginning of the war, without experience in a subordinate position. Want of this experience Grant did not believe a proper preparation for high command.

Grant said as much in his first interview with Lincoln and Stanton, with Halleck, who detested Butler, emphatically concurring. But Lincoln and Stanton informed him that “political considerations of the highest character made it undesirable to displace Butler.” So Grant next proposed to “leave Butler in command of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina, but to put W. F. Smith at the head of the column in the field” — which, incidentally, is an arrangement I don’t recall ever being made in the war, though I could well be wrong. Lincoln and Stanton acquiesced, but

Butler was too shrewd to allow it to be carried into effect. He had a right to command his own troops, and he made it understood without delay, that he intended to lead them in the field. There was no way to prevent this but to relieve him entirely from command, and thus provoke the very opposition which the administration thought it indispensable to avoid. (246-247)

Logically, this should have meant that Grant would have given Butler very specific guidance, and also that he would have dialed down his expectations of Butler — to think of Butler as merely “holding a leg” like Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley, not functioning as the “left wing” of the Army of the Potomac and playing a major role in Grant’s operational concept. But hey:

Grant . . . was obliged to work with the tools in his hands, and since this was inevitable, he treated Butler with the same large confidence and consideration which he accorded to other important subordinates [even though he supposedly considered Butler unworthy of high command]. He gave him two of the ablest professional soldiers in the army to command his corps [the mediocre Gillmore and the Smith whose promotion Grant would soon regret having pushed through ], in the hope that Butler would avail himself of their talent and experience; he sent him a promising general officer of cavalry; and

[drumroll!]

offered him the opportunity of capturing the rebel capital; leaving thus what seemed to most men the prize of the campaign within the reach of a subordinate, while he assumed for himself the more difficult task of conquering the greatest army of the Confederacy. (247)

This is just totally bonkers. Grant wants to remove Butler for lack of command qualifications, but when this proves impossible he’s such a good sport that he puts Butler in charge of capturing the Confederate capital! Meanwhile Grant “assumed for himself” the job of beating Robert E. Lee, a characterization that overlooks two important points: first, George Gordon Meade, an experienced professional who had already defeated Lee once, was available for the position; and second, Lee was not exactly disinterested in the fate of Richmond. If Butler came anywhere close to capturing the city, Lee would have swiftly withdrawn into its fortification belt and very probably beat the living crap out of Butler.

No, Badeau protests far too much. The fact is, when you’re stuck with a subordinate of limited ability, common sense dictates that you give the subordinate clear guidance and an assignment commensurate with his abilities. If his assignment is unavoidably the key assignment, then you have the option to exercise direct oversight. After all, if Grant could do it with Meade, why not Butler?

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6 – Part 7 (coming)

Our third main account the Fort Monroe conference comes from William F. Smith. Though not present when Grant and Butler discussed the Bermuda Hundred operation, Smith learned of the plan during a one-on-one exchange with Butler when the two first met. Smith recorded the event twice: in an article for Century magazine, published in volume four of Battles and Leaders of the Civil War; and his obscure 1893 memoir, From Chattanooga to Petersburg under Generals Grant and Butler, revealingly subtitled A Contribution to the War, and a Personal Vindication. If the campaigns of May-June 1864 proved an embarrassment to Butler and gave Grant his enduring reputation as a “butcher,” they demolished Smith’s career, a point that one must constantly bear in mind when using him as a source.

Here’s the gist of Smith’s account as given in his B&L article and as reflected in my notes:

Smith accompanied USG to Butler’s dept. They landed at Fort Monroe and went to visit Butler in Norfolk. Per Smith, the only business that day was USG sizing up Butler to see if he should be left in command of the force operating from the Yorktown peninsula. It was the rain delay that gave Butler the chance on April 2 to unveil his plan to USG. Per Smith, Butler had discussed it with Smith on April 1. “Having only reported to him two hours earlier, I did not like to say anything against the movement, or about my opinion that the first move should be for Petersburg. On April 2d, when General Grant came ashore, Butler got out his maps and sent for me. Not liking to oppose the campaign in Butler’s presence, I did not go, but thought Grant would have some talk with me about it. He did not, but sat down and wrote Butler’s instructions, which Butler understood as endorsing his plan entirely, and so I thought and still think from the text of them.” (206fn.)

In reality, Smith believed that the Bermuda Hundred position was excellent defensively but not well-suited for offensive operations. (207) “Practically, the position taken up was between two fortresses [Richmond and Petersburg] with wet ditches [the James River and the Appomattox River and Swift Run, respectively]. In this campaign, whichever way the Army of the James moved, it was weakened by two paralyzed forces, one holding the line of intrenchments, and one necessarily posted to cover the rear from the works in that direction.” (208) Smith thought the seizure of City Point irrelevant from the standpoint of the Bermuda Hundred operation [though of course it came in handy later during the Petersburg Campaign] (208)

Although one could argue that this is self-serving hindsight on the part of Smith, my gut tells me he probably did see these problems with the Bermuda Hundred operational concept as soon as Butler sketched it out for him. For one thing, Smith indisputably possessed a very quick mind — that was the main reason Grant so stubbornly insisted that he receive a major generalship and an important command during the 1864 offensive. For another, hearing almost any plan from an amateur general would have placed the highly professional Smith in a skeptical frame of mind. Lastly, I myself noticed these problems as soon as I gave serious consideration to the Bermuda Hundred operation, and I assumed, until I knew better, that Grant must have given Butler instructions that addressed them head on.

In after years Grant plainly wished he had done so: that’s why his memoirs speak of Butler moving not just against Richmond but also against weakly-defended Petersburg (which would have eliminated one of these two “fortresses,” as Smith expressed it, while firmly interdicting Confederate reinforcements coming up from the South). But you won’t find this in the instructions Grant gave Butler after their conference:

(Continued)

With autumn quarter less than two months away, it’s time to prepare the syllabus for my next graduate readings course. Although I’m pretty well satisfied with the selections, it’s still a work in progress. Suggestions are welcome.

(Continued)

Grant assumed command of all Union armies on March 9, 1864. Although the appointment was not unexpected and Grant had already begun to ponder the North’s strategic options, only at that point did he possess clear authority to act. He was thus in the less than enviable position of organizing a spring campaign with only two months’ lead time.

His memoirs accurately convey the general outline of his strategic vision: to pressure the Confederacy through a simultaneous, concentric offensive. A major component of that offensive was unproblematic: His friend and partner William T. Sherman was aready installed in Chattanooga and the northern fringe of Georgia, well positioned to advance toward the industrial and rail center of Atlanta.

Other elements were problematic to say the least. Although he wanted Nathaniel P. Banks to advance from Louisiana toward Mobile, Alabama, Henry W. Halleck, his predecessor as general in chief, had already gained the Lincoln administration’s blessing for Banks to advance in the opposite direction: up the Red River valley in hopes of gaining secure access to Texas and, not incidentally, to capture the immense stockpiles of cotton in that region. Two divisions from Sherman’s army were even diverted to support the Red River operation (see Steve’s series on Andrew Smith’s Gorillas).

The Red River gambit served notice that Grant’s authority was not absolute. He also had trouble arranging a subsidiary offensive in West Virginia to his liking. He preferred E. O. C. Ord for the job, but political pressures dictated that the assignment would go to Franz Sigel. Distrustful of Sigel’s ability, Grant rearranged the West Virginia offensive into two comparatively minor raiding forces under William Averell and George Crook. (Sigel independently and, as events proved, disastrously, contrived his own offensive in the Shenandoah Valley.)

There was also the fate of Grant’s proposal to have 60,000 troops advance from the Atlantic coast — probably from Suffolk, Virginia — and interdict the Weldon Railroad, Richmond’s most important line of communications with the Carolinas. Grant plainly considered this a more adroit move than yet another thrust down the Washington-Richmond corridor. But when he made the suggestion (prior to becoming general in chief), Halleck explained the Lincoln administration’s view that such an operation was out of the question. So many troops could only be had by taking them from the Army of the Potomac. Halleck, Lincoln and Stanton believed that any diminution of that army would embolden Robert E. Lee to strike northward as he had done the two previous summers. Like it or not, Grant had to accept the fact that the Army of the Potomac would conduct its own spring offensive so as to interpose itself between Lee’s army and Washington.

Even so, Grant liked the idea of a coastal offensive of some kind, and the only available option was to do something with the troops in the Department of Virginia and North Carolina. The department commander was, of course, Ben Butler. On April 1, Grant arrived at Fort Monroe, on the tip of the peninsula formed by the James and York Rivers, intent on meeting Butler. With him came several staff officers, his wife Julia, his political patron Congressman Elihu Washburne, and General William F. Smith, who was without command but who had greatly impressed Grant during the Chattanooga campaign the previous autumn.

(Continued)