--The newspaper generals in the
United and the
Confederate States do not seem to agree in their estimates of
General Bragg.
The correspondent of the New York
Times with
Sherman's army thus writes of a general who is generally held up as the author, and, in most cases, the finisher of all our disasters:
‘
I will inform you of one thing certain in connection with
Hood.
There is a person named
Bragg at work.
His tactics cannot be mistaken.
He pounced his whole army upon one Federal corps while moving in column at
Perryville, nearly annihilated it, and ran off at night.
He made
Rosecrans think he was in
Murfreesboro' awaiting an attack, and in the night crossed
Stone river, marched his army three miles, massed his left, grabbed three thousand men and twenty-four cannon from
McCook, and then pitched in and whipped our right, killing and wounding more than two-fifths of those who avoided capture, and drove back half of our army four miles. At
Chickamauga he again attacked our army moving in columns, with what result is well known.
This same dodge was attempted on the 20th and 22d of July, but upon each occasion our army was in line of battle.
The attack upon
Logan on the 28th ultimo did not far fall short.
Had the enemy withdrawn his skirmish line but a few moments sooner, the Fifteenth corps would, have found itself in great peril.
As it was, as I have informed you in my account of the battle, the enemy all but struck us in the flank and rear.
’
It is an opinion, long ago expressed, that
General Bragg is the best man the enemy ever had in command of his army in the
Southwest.
This fact is clearly developed now. The rebels, in and out of the army, despise
Bragg because he is a soldier.
He is a strict disciplinarian.
Had he not been, the rebel Army of Tennessee, composed of a lot of young men who were inclined to do as their fancy dictated, would have been long ago destroyed by its own elements of insubordination.
