Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/249

 use and rain that the boats, after a few days, again ran to Brown's. Complete relief of the army, however, remained thenceforth assured.

The credit due for General Smith's achievement was given him by General Thomas in a very complimentary general order issued on November 1. General Hooker's command also received special recognition in another, dated November 7, in which this passage (rather overdone, considering that we suffered scarcely any losses in taking the hills) occurs: “The bayonet charge of Howard's troops, made up the sides of a steep and difficult hill over 200 feet high, completely routing and driving the enemy from his barricades on its top, and the repulse by Geary's division of greatly superior numbers who attempted to surprise him, will rank among the most distinguished feats of arms of this war.” In another respect, Generals Grant and Thomas had so much ground for dissatisfaction with the behavior of General Hooker that he would not have been distinguished by that order if they could have helped it under the army rules entitling the superior to a share of the glory actually achieved by a subordinate.

As shown by his report of October 26 to the General-in-chief, General Grant at first had some doubts of the possibility of sustaining the army at Chattanooga, and discussed the contingency of leaving the defence of the place to part of it and moving the bulk nearer to regular supplies. With a view to this, General Smith was ordered to resume work on the fortifications, which had been allowed to lag owing to the all but continuous rain, and push it to completion, which he agreed to do within three weeks, so that 10,000 men could hold the place against any hostile force. In the same report, Grant gives expression to his strong apprehension that the enemy would have a large force up the river and cross it between Blythe's Ferry and Cotton Port, thirty to forty miles northeast of Chattanooga, and then repeat Bragg's former movement upon our communications via McMinnville. In that case, the weak