Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 39.djvu/25

 "Missionary Ridge." 13

nooga) breaks up into steep hills, almost mountains, and fur- nishes chances for "flanking."' Now, this whole long distance had to be covered by what was left of our army.

Consider, then, the picture presented on the second and de- cisive day. The two armies faced each other: one (ours) on Missionary Ridge ; Grant's, in the valley or low ground, a mile or so outside of Chattanooga, toward us (the bulk of it, that is), in a line curving around our left up on top of Lookout Mountain and enfilading "our left" and stretching at the other end (opposite "our right") far beyond our right and threaten- ing to turn that flank also. What a spectacle of power they presented, two solid black lines, one behind the other, each in two ranks, stretching, each end out of sight, clear beyond the whole length of the valley! A spectacle of power, emphasized, indeed, to our eyes as we dropped them to look, by contrast, to our own line, scanty and full of gaps, along the ridge. They had 100,000 men and over; we had about 25,000 or 26,000 en- feebled men, thinned out (to cover that long distance) to such attenuation that there was but one "rank" of us, and in places this single rank was made up of men five to seven or eight feet apart. Such was the picture when morning broke into a lovely winter day, the 26th of November, 1863.

Grant attacked, and his move was a move on both flanks, our left and our right (four to six miles apart, possibly). On our left he sent General Hooker, with a flanking column of many thousands ("40,000" was the camp talk after the battle) right through that wide valley between Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. We had little more than a skirmish line there, if that. We had not men enough to put there. Hooker hardly fired a shot, for he met but few men to fire at. He simply walked through that valley, then, turning around upon the rear of our left and center, he halted and awaited orders. Those orders came in the afternoon, when, by preconcerted signal, he and the army along the front of our left and center were to charge at one and the same time and coop up our en- trapped men in a certain destruction or capture.