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CHATHAM

373

CHAUCER

Chatham  (chaf&m),    Northumberland

County, N. B., is the chief town on the gulf coast of the province, lying on Miramichi Bay, with a fine harbor and much activity in shipyards, mills, foundries and lumber. It has a population of about 5,000. To the southwest, along the Miramichi River, are the best salmon grounds in Canada.

Chat'ham, a city of 10,317 in western Ontario. Situated on the River Thames. Considerable manufacturing is done here. A carriage-manufactory is one of its largest industries. It is in the natural-gas and oil district. The district surrounding it is particularly rich and fertile. It is growing rapidly, its natural advantages proving attractive. _

Chattahoochee (chat'tahoo'che), a river in Georgia, which takes its rise in the northeast part of the state, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and, flowing south, between Georgia and Alabama, unites with Flint River to form the Appalachicola. Its length is over 500 miles, and it is navigable for over 200 miles to Columbus. It is famous in literature as the subject of Lanier's poem, The Song of the Chattahoochee,

Chat'tanoo'ga, Tenn., a city, the county seat of Hamilton County, on the Tennessee River and on a number of railway trunk-lines. For eight or nine months of the year the river is navigable as far as Chattanooga. It is the seat of Grant (M. E.) University, the Chattanooga Medical College and Chattanooga Female Institute, as also of Baroness Erlanger Hospital; it has many fine civic buildings, an opera house, public library and a number of attractive churches and educational institutions. The city has a large trade in coal, iron, grain and lumber, its industries embracing the manufacture of steel and iron, machinery of various kinds, furniture, bricks and tiles, cotton goods, carriages and cars. In the vicinity is the Chickamauga National Military Park, marking the scene of the battle of Chickamauga (Sept. 1863). During the Civil War the city and neighborhood were the scenes of much and calamitous fighting, the city especially suffering. A sad evidence of the bloody struggle of the era is the national cemetery here, which contains about 13,400 graves. Population (IQio), 44,604.

Chattanooga, Battle of, a series of bloody engagements, in the Civil War, fought at Chattanooga, Tenn., and immediate neighborhood, Nov. 23-25, 1863, between the Federal army (60,000 strong) under General Grant and the Confederate forces (numbering 40,000) under General Bragg, and ending disastrously for the south. The battle had for its initial acts the expulsion of Bragg "Hy Rosecrans from Chattanooga, and the battle fought at Chickamauga (Sept. 19-20, '63), in which the Union army was defeated and driven back to Chattanooga, where General Thomas, who had succeeded

Rosecrans in command of the Army of the Cumberland, was besieged by Bragg. At this juncture General Grant, who had been placed in command of the northern armies operating in the region, came on the scene, bringing with him General Sherman with a part of the Army of the Tennessee, Hooker with reinforcements from the east having just preceded them. Ordering Hooker's corps to attack Bragg's left, Grant entrusted to Sherman the duty of attacking the southern right, while Thomas was to engage the center. Hooker forced his way up Lookout Mountain and had a notable engagement with the enemy in what is romantically known as the Battle above the Clouds, afterwards gaining a position on Bragg's left and rear. Sherman's attack met with stubborn resistance, and desperate fighting ensued without decisive results. Finally the forces under Thomas charged and carried the enemy's rifle-pits at the foot of the Ridge and in the absence of orders, rushed up the steep face of Missionary Ridge, and won the crest and the day. The storming of this Ridge has been noted as one of the most heroic achievements of the war, besides being vitally disastrous to Bragg and his army, which retreated toward Atlanta. See War of the Rebellion Records, also The Army of the Cumberland and Battles and Leaders of the Civil War,.

Chaucer (cha'sVr), Geoffrey, English poet and man of affairs, was born about 1340. Of his early boyhood we know nothing. At the age of seventeen we find him a page in the service of the wife of the Duke of Clarence, and at nineteen see him in the army of Edward III fighting the French, when he was taken prisoner, but later on was ransomed. He married about 1360 the sister of the future wife of John of Gaunt. He was given a pension by the king, and sent afterward to the Continent as commissioner or diplomat. In 1386 he lost two of the offices he was holding, why we know not, and from that time until his death misfortune pursued him. He seems never to have made provision for old age, and now many dark days came to him, though things went a little better when Henry IV, the son of his old friend, John of Gaunt, came to the throne. While on the king's business he visited Italy, and we find in most of his poems indications that his idea of poetry, what it is and should be, as well as his style and many of his plots and subjects, were taken from the great Italian poets, Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio. The first of his great poems was Troilus and Cressida, but not until the darkness of poverty and old age came upon him, did he write the Canterbury Tales, of which the Prologue is the chief work. The Tales are related by a company of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury, who gather at an inn and agree each to tell a tale in going and returning; he who should