Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/142

 The strife having been actually a series of “little battles,” fought by particular units of the respective armies against each other with fluctuating results, it is not surprising that the division and brigade commanders engaged should, almost without exception on both sides, resort again in their reports to the plea of having encountered largely superior numbers, in extenuation of failure and in exaggeration of success. It is but natural that such fictions should be echoed first in the reports of corps commanders and then of the commanders-in-chief.

General Bragg had, to recapitulate, sought first to break our left and plant his army between us and Chattanooga, and next, when he had failed in this, to cut us in two by piercing our centre. General Rosecrans's chief object was to secure the concentration of his army and thereby his lines of communication with Chattanooga. As both of Bragg's attempts had miscarried, while Rosecrans had his forces fully in hand and commanded the two roads — the Rossville and the Dry Valley — to Chattanooga at the close of the day, the outcome may well be deemed to have been in our favor. It must be admitted at the same time that it was not our tactics but the Confederate to which the result was due, for the course which the action took through the aggressiveness of the enemy promoted, so to speak, and accelerated our concentrating movement. The hostile pressure contracted, as it were, our extended and loose lines, and forced us into a position astride the important roads. But it is also true that the line gained by the Confederates during the day was far better for a further offensive than that occupied by them on the morning of the 19th, since the Chickamauga was no longer between most of their troops and our own, they were within easy striking distance of us and, in front of both our flanks, much nearer to the Chattanooga roads, and, moreover, they were no longer hampered in their movements by ignorance of the ground.

Bragg was fully aware of all this, and had no other thought than to renew the struggle as early the next day as