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Book III:—the Third winter.
IN crossing the
Chattooga Mountain,
Bragg abandons for ever the basin of the
Mississippi, in which his valiant army has been fighting for the past two years and a half.
Grant contents himself with holding the entrance to the great gap in
the Alleghanies, and thinks only of delivering
Burnside, who is besieged.
While
Granger proceeds to his assistance, the other corps hold themselves in readiness to support him and prevent
Bragg from taking, in his turn, the
Knoxville road.
It is, then, necessary to watch the latter closely, without allowing one's self to be carried away in pursuit of him.
Hooker will remain at
Ringgold until the evening of November 30th, avoiding an engagement with the enemy if the latter remains quiet, but ready to attack him vigorously if he proceeds to
Cleveland, or to push as far as
Dalton if he evacuate that point.
The different divisions temporarily collected under his orders will go into winter quarters in the positions which they occupied on November 23d.
Cruft's will deflect from its road to accomplish a holy and sad duty: it is to visit the battlefield of
Chickamauga and bury the victims of that cruel struggle, of whom, notwithstanding the care of some compassionate Confederates, the decomposed corpses are still lying, for the most part, in the woods, covered as with a thick shroud by the sere, dead leaves.
Sherman, having hastened to
Ringgold, receives orders to return also, by easy marches, to
Chattanooga, systematically destroying behind him the railway between
Ringgold and
Chickamauga Station.
But
Grant's stores are again almost exhausted; the commissary, who feeds a hundred and twenty-five thousand
