placed in command of the Army of the Cumberland, Rosecrans having been ordered to St. Louis.

When Grant arrived at Chattanooga, he ordered Hooker, who was at Bridgeport, to advance to Lookout Valley, menace Bragg's flank, and protect the passage of supplies up the Tennessee to within a short distance from the famishing armies. This was promptly done. Hooker's main force took post at Wauhatchie, where he was attacked before daylight on the morning of the 29th of October. After a battle for three hours in the

darkness, the Confederates were beaten and driven away. An amusing incident of this struggle occurred. When it began, about two hundred mules, frightened by the noise, broke from their tethers and dashed into the ranks of Wade Hampton's legion, and produced a great panic. The Confederates supposed it to be a charge of Hooker's cavalry, and fell back, at first, in great confusion. The incident was a theme for a mock-heroic poem of six stanzas in imitation of Tennyson's "Charge of the Six Hundred," two verses of which were as follows:

Forward, the mule brigade-
Was there a mule dismay'd?
Not when their long ears felt

All their ropes sundered.
Theirs not to make reply-
Theirs not to reason why-
Theirs but to make them fly-
On! to the Georgia troops

Broke the two hundred.

"Mules to the right of them

Mules to the left of them-

Mules all behind them-

Paw'd, neigh'd, and thundered;

Breaking their own confines

Breaking through Longstreet's lines-
Testing chivalric spines,

Into the Georgia troops

Storm'd the two hundred."

After this battle, the Tennessee was free for vessels with supplies for the National troops, and the two armies lay confronting each other, only about three miles apart.

Meanwhile there had been stirring events in the Valley of East Tennessee, where Burnside was trying to expel the Confederates. In these efforts he had spread his army considerably. Perceiving this, Bragg sent Longstreet to the Valley with a strong force to seize Knoxville and drive out the Nationals. He advanced swiftly and secretly; and on the 20th of October he struck a startling blow at Burnside's outposts at Philadelphia. In obedience to a command from Grant, the latter concentrated his forces (Ninth Army Corps), fell back to Knoxville, and there intrenched. Longstreet pressed forward, and after some fighting by the way, he began a regular siege of Knoxville at the middle of November. He continued it to the close of the month, when Generals Granger and Sherman were sent to the relief of Burnside, and caused the swift flight of Longstreet toward Virginia. By this blunder, Bragg had lost the support of this superior commander.

Hostilities had again occurred near Chattanooga. General Sherman arrived there, with his army, from the West. So strengthened, Grant determined to attack Bragg in the absence of Longstreet. On the 23d of November, General Thomas seized a commanding eminence in front of Missionary Ridge, called Orchard Knob, and fortified it; and Hooker was ordered to attack Bragg's left, on Lookout Mountain, the next morning, to divert attention from the movements of Sherman, who was to cross the Tennessee, above Chattanooga, and fall upon Bragg's right, on the Ridge. Hooker moved with vigor, fighting his way up the rugged wooded steeps of Lookout Mountain with musket, rifle and cannon, driving the Confederates before him. During the heaviest of the struggle the mountain was hooded in vapor that arose from the Tennessee and hid the combatants from the view of the anxious spectators at Chattanooga. They could hear the thunders of the artillery, but the warriors were invisible. It was literally a battle in the clouds. Finally the Confederates were driven to the summit;

CHAP. XX.

BATTLE OF MISSIONARY RIDGE.

1639

and that night they fled down the northern slopes to the Chattanooga Valley, and joined their commander on Missionary Ridge. In the crisp air and the sunlight, the next morning, the Stars and Stripes were seen waving over "Pulpit Rock," on the crest of Lookout Mountain, from which, a few days before, Jefferson Davis had harangued the troops, assuring them that all was well with the Confederacy.

Sherman, in the meantime, had crossed the Tennessee River and secured a position on the northern end of Missionary Ridge, on which Bragg had concentrated all his forces, and there the Confederates were attacked on front and flank on the 25th of November. Hooker came down from Lookout Mountain, and entering Ross's Gap, attacked Bragg's left, while Sherman was assailing his right. There was a fearful struggle, beheld with intense interest by General Grant, who stood on Orchard Knob and directed the movements of the National army. At length the centre, under General Thomas, moved up the declivities; and very soon the Confederates were driven from the Ridge, when they fled toward Ringgold, followed by a portion of the National army. At Ringgold, a sharp engagement occurred, when the Confederates retreated to Dalton, the Nationals fell back, and Sherman hastened to the relief of Burnside, as already mentioned.

General Grant reported the Union loss, in the series of struggles which ended in victory at Missionary Ridge, at five thousand six hundred and sixteen, in killed, wounded, and missing. The Confederate loss was about three thousand one hundred, killed and wounded, and a little more than six. thousand prisoners. Grant had also captured forty pieces of artillery and about seven thousand small arms. In a letter to the victorious general, the President thanked him and his men for their skill and bravery in securing "a lodgement at Chattanooga and Knoxville." Congress voted thanks and a gold medal for Grant, and directed the President of the Republic to cause the latter to be struck, "with suitable emblems, devices, and inscriptions.' The general was the recipient of other tokens of regard, of various kinds; and the legislatures of New York and Ohio voted him thanks in the name of the people of those great States.

During the first half of 1863, General J. G. Foster was in command of the National troops in North Carolina, with his headquarters at New Berne, from which point he sent out raiding parties to scatter Confederate forces who were gathering here and there to recover lost posts in that State. In these expeditions, many sharp skirmishes took place. The Nationals were generally successful, and confined their antagonists to the interior of the State. Finally, in July (1863), Foster was called to the command at Fortress