Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 1

[441] ‘I will hold the town till we starve!’—an answer worthy of the soldier whose individual energy had infused his own corps, and saved an entire army from annihilation, at the battle of Chickamauga.

On the morning of the 20th, Grant started from Louisville, by rail. He arrived at Nashville the same night, and, at half-past 11, he telegraphed to Burnside, who was then at Knoxville: ‘Have you tools for fortifying? Important points in East Tennessee should be put in condition to be held by the smallest number of men, as soon as possible. . . . . I will be in Stevenson to-morrow night, and Chattanooga the next night.’ From Nashville, he also telegraphed to Admiral Porter, at Cairo: ‘General Sherman's advance was at Eastport, on the 15th. The sooner a gunboat can be got to him the better. Boats must now be on the way from St. Louis, with supplies to go up the Tennessee, for Sherman.’ Of Thomas, he asked: ‘Should not large working-parties be put upon the road between Bridgeport and Chattanooga, at once?’ At Stevenson, he met Rosecrans, who had received the order relieving him, and was now on his way to the North. Their interview was short; but Rosecrans was cordial, and volunteered information about the condition of affairs. At Bridgeport, Grant telegraphed for the commissary of subsistence at Nashville, to ‘send to the front, as speedily as possible, vegetables for the army. Beans and hominy are especially required.’

From this point, the party started by horse, for Chattanooga: the roads were almost impassable, by reason of the rain, which rolled in torrents, sometimes a foot deep, down the sides of the mountain. Great precipices rose and descended on either hand; the