Chapter 9

Before we broke camp on a rainy morning heading down river toward the area of Confederate concentration around Lookout Mountain, I covertly passed Roxanne a small derringer with a fistful of rounds for her to secret on her person in the event of future hostilities. She certainly seemed rough and tough enough to be a survivor but females in the middle of wars never had a certainty of good treatment when desperate men are looking for a respite from the horrors of war.

I knew she appreciated my concern but she didn't make a big deal out of it and I was relieved because I didn't want any entanglements in a time period where I didn't belong.

We made our way south rapidly because there were pockets of Confederate resistance behind the Union lines in every direction. The movements of the warring parties were so confused and haphazard that battle lines were often difficult to discern with certainty. This element of uncertainty about the location of the "front" lines was one of the reasons for our caution in rushing into an area we had not thoroughly scouted for ambushes or traps.

I had recently been to a briefing by the Army Intelligence services and listened carefully to the details of their report. I was in the minority of combatants interested in these details because the Intelligence services were considered a bunch of amateurs unable to connect the dots with any sort of effective results.

I took notes of the briefing and relied on them to give me some perspective on the future battle in front of us as we tried to "break out" of Chattanooga into the heartland of the enemy.

We were in the middle of November 1863 and the Captain looked us straight in the eye and told us,

"General Rosecran's Army of the Cumberland was forced to retreat at the Battle of Chickamauga with sustained high casualties and the remainder of the Union Army was pretty well "bottled up" inside of Chattanooga. The Confederate forces have taken control of the surrounding high ground around Chattanooga and it would be our objective to kick them out of those defensive positions and allow our reinforcing troops to move south into Georgia to split the Confederacy in two."

He pointed out several routes on the large map on the side of the tent and stated with some pride,

"General U.S. Grant has been appointed commander of all Union forces in the West and we will see large numbers of reinforcements from the East into the Chattanooga area from his units still based in the Eastern Theater of Operations."

My notes also included his reference to a new supply line. It was called "The Cracker Line" and General Grant planned to feed and supply his forces, both men and horses, with the provisions moved rapidly over this new route. He was a General officer who understood the importance of lines of communication and supply to the success of his attacks and he made them the priority of his planning in every operation. At least that was the opinion back when I looked at his record in the history books.

He also told us of General Grant's future plans that included,

"Moving large reinforcing units of the Union Army under the command of the daring General William T. Sherman to attack the Rebel positions at Missionary Ridge."

The briefing also included the fact that,

"At the same time he intended to move reinforcements from the East under command of General Joe Hooker to directly attack the Confederate units installed at Lookout Mountain."

I knew from my studies that Sherman would be stalled against the battle-hardened Confederate forces, but those forces under Hooker would be joined by units under the command of General Thomas who was known to be the most aggressive officer under Grant's command. They would surge to the top of Missionary Ridge completely routing the Confederate defenders misunderstanding the orders in the heat of battle.

The Rebel forces would eventually retreat slowing down the Union advance with a sizable delaying action at the Battle of Ringgold Gap. I could see the strategic location of Ringgold Gap on the hand-drawn map on the wall of the tent. I was blessed or saddled according to one's perspective with the knowledge that the continued retreat of the Confederate forces would be a complete disaster. They would be faced with overwhelming opposition robbing them of their control of the entire sector around Chattanooga and it would eventually open the front door for the Union invasion bringing death and destruction into the "Deep South".

The devastating losses later suffered by the Confederates facing General Sherman on his famous "March through Atlanta" in the early part of 1864 was not given much merit in the history books but students of military science knew it was the death knell of the South and a sure indicator that their cause was lost.

For some strange reason that I failed to comprehend, I was promoted to the rank of Sergeant and given a platoon of the new reinforcements that had not yet been in actual battle. They were mostly straight off the ships docking in the East Coast harbors bringing new recruits to fight for a country they barely knew but wanted to preserve as a unified entity. Some of them only spoke their native Italian but I was able to converse with them after traversing that entire country on foot all the way from Sicily right up into the mountainous region bordering on France. The landing at Anzio was a debacle in my personal opinion with far too many young men lost because of inept leadership and timid officers but the overall strategy was similar in some respects to the way General Grant was dissecting the field forces under overall leadership of General Robert E. Lee.