Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 4.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[307] seven hundred men killed, four thousand wounded, and three hundred prisoners—considerable losses, without any doubt, but which are largely offset by the result obtained. After having broken the impediments which closed the passage of the Mississippi, it is again Grant who has just opened the doors of Georgia. The Federal armies have at last found the warrior worthy to lead them. The bold and skilful manoeuvres which began in the valley of Lookout Mountain and terminated a month later near the house whence Bragg and Davis had contemplated a Union army besieged at their feet, enhance the glory of the conquerer of Vicksburg. He has proved that his mind, powerful to conceive, firm to execute, is fertile in resources at the critical time.

If Bragg thought for an instant to halt in the Chickamauga Valley, the state of his army did not permit him long to keep up this hope. His army must seek, not defensive positions, for it cannot fight, but places impenetrable to the enemy, sheltered by which it might recover from the effects of its disaster. The rigor of the season, the lack of provisions, the necessity for the Federals to aid Burnside, will soon deliver it from the pursuit of its adversary. It will be able to halt at Dalton, where important depots are to be found.

Meanwhile, Grant loses not an instant to despatch his soldiers upon the tracks of the defeated enemy. Unfortunately, the want of forage has obliged him, as we have seen, to send away from Chattanooga all his cavalry save Long's brigade, placed under the orders of General Sherman. This brigade, in the field for two days, carries destruction on the railway which connected Bragg directly with Longstreet. Long, having passed in the afternoon of the 24th, after Sherman, the Tennessee, then the Chickamauga near its mouth, reached on the same evening the Cleveland Railroad at Tyner's Station. The destruction of this important depot would have sufficed to cause serious alarm to Bragg and great embarrassments to his quartermaster if, when the former received the news of that destruction, the battle waging on Missionary Ridge had not absorbed all his attention. While the din of this battle was rumbling behind him Long continued the destruction of the railway via Ooltawah as far as Cleveland, where he found vaster stores abandoned without defence. On the