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CHAPTER X.

THE

CHATTANOOGA

CAMPAIGN.

ONE morning as Maedy was arranging the sitting-room, she chanced to see the daily paper, brought in the evening before, lying unopened on the table; her eye caught the headings of the first column. "Oh, mamma,” she called, "here's news; 'Great Battle near Chattanooga ! Withdrawal of the Union forces! Bragg threatens the town.”

"What is it?" asked Mrs. Warren, from the kitchen. "Bring the paper in here, Maedy; I can't leave my pumpkin just now."

So the dusting was forgotten for the time, and while the gay, golden spheres

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were pared and cut apart to be stewed for pies, the others dried and stored for winter use, Maedy read aloud the account of Gen. Thomas' withdrawal, of holding the passes of Mission Ridge, of repulse on the Ringgold road, and finally of the sixteen thousand and more lost to us in the struggle; dreadful figures that burdened her with suggestions of the suffering they fail to

express.

"I can't understand it all," she added, "but our men have fallen back, plainly enough. How sorry Horace will be, mamma; he was so proud of the army of the Cumberland ! After it fought at Murfreesboro he thought it could not be beaten, I believe."

"We have heard wonderful accounts of it since that battle," said Mrs. Warren,

though during the winter Rosecrans was unable to move, for lack of supplies and cavalry. But when at last he did start, in June, he swept the various divisions of Bragg's army from their strongholds in

Middle Tennessee, without risking so much as a single engagement with the united rebel forces. The story of the passage over the mountains and swollen streams, of traversing roads washed by seventeen days of rain, of toiling for three days to make the passage of but twenty-one miles, as one division did, is wonderful; the result of the whole was, that General Bragg looked out one morning from his entrenchments at this same Chattanooga-the hawk's nest, as the Indian name is interpreted—and saw the heights opposite covered with the army blue. I suppose he remembered the Vicksburg garrison, thought of severed communications, a diet of rats, and final surrender; be that as it may, he abandoned the place immediately

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The children had waited long to raise their flag in token of victory, but they looked in vain among the telegrams for cheering news from Tennessee.

"They have so many odd names in that region," said Frank, one day, in speaking

of the late engagement; "we hear of our soldiers in many a place that isn't down in the Geography. Chickamauga, for one— 'the River of Death' it means with the Indians; all their names mean something, I believe. Perhaps I can find it on the war-map. Do you know where the last one is, father ? ”

"Here's Chattanooga, in the southeast corner," said Roger, searching in Tennessee when the map was unfolded on the table.

"Yes," said the father, "it was evacuated on the seventh and eight of September; and up in the fastnesses of these mountains the greybacks posted themselves when we thought they were retiring southward. There they waited, secretly gathering reinforcements, and watching the movements of our divisions in the valleys below, while Wheeler's and other cavalry troops threatened the railroad and supply stations on which our men depended. It was now our turn to expect short rations. Rosecrans took his position to the east

ward of Chattanooga, here by the Chickamauga; his entire force, fifty-five thousand strong, opposed by Bragg's divisions, numbering about seventy thousand, with additional detachments posted where they could be summoned, if needed.

The num

bers and position of the Confederates were discovered in the beginning of the strife, on the nineteenth of September, when several assaults on our lines were made with varying success. During one of these onsets we lost a battery famed for its good service; the men defended it obstinately, for they cherished the belief that it could not be taken; and when most of them were disabled, the commander, Lieutenant Van Pelt, staid by the guns wielding his sword till the rebel throngs trampled him to the earth. Another charge toward the close of the day was made by Pat. Cleburne, called the Western Stonewall Jackson,' who claimed to have gained some advantage. But foremost in the contest was Longstreet's corps, veterans led by a famous

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