Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 21.djvu/151

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joined by Forrest, impatient for orders to pursue the flying foe. When some hours had been passed in the vain effort to learn where the headquarters of the commanding general were located, Long- street and Hill agreed to divide the responsibility of ordering the im- mediate pursuit by Forrest, with an assurance that they would ask the privilege of pushing forward to his support at early dawn.

Unable by the most diligent inquiry to open communication with Bragg till the next afternoon, they failed to secure for Forrest the infantry support that would have swept the single division of Thomas out of the gap on Missionary Ridge, or flanked and captured it, without another obstruction in the road to Chattanooga and on to Nashville. Such might have been the fruits of our victory, which, being lost by delay, the last hope of the tottering Confederacy to regain the prestige and restore the confidence lost at Gettysburg and Vicksburg was gone forever.

THE PETITION FOR BRAGG' S REMOVAL.

Scattered along the face of Missionary Ridge, waiting for the enemy to make Chattanooga impregnable, and then uniting the forces of Grant and Sherman with the reorganized army of Thomas to overwhelm them, were the disheartened Confederates, daily grow- ing weaker from the desertion of men whose homes were exposed to devastation by the Federals.

It was at this juncture that Buckner drew, and Polk, Longstreet, Hill, Buckner, Cleburne, Cheatham, Brown and other Generals signed and sent to the President a petition stating that the Com- manding-General had lost the confidence of the army, and asking that he be transferred to another command and replaced by a more acceptable leader. Hill was the last of the Lieutenant-Generals consulted, but, unfortunately for his future, his headquarters were located at a central point on the line, and the paper was left there to be signed. Cheatham and Cleburne met at that point and put their names to the paper at the same time. After the battle of Murfrees- boro, Bragg had addressed letters to the chiefs of divisions in his army, asking whether he retained the confidence of the troops, and intimating a willingness to resign if he had lost it. Breckinridge, Cleburne and one or two others promply answered that they thought he could no longer be useful in the position he occupied. The cor- respondence led to an open breach between Bragg and Breckin-