Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, Volume 2 November 1863-June 1865

Excerpt

GRANT IN COMMAND—ROSECRANS RELIEVED

Importance of unity in command—Inevitable difficulties in a double organization—Burnside's problem different from that of Rosecrans—Cooperation necessarily imperfect—Growth of Grant's reputation—Solid grounds of it—Special orders sent him—Voyage to Cairo—Meets Stanton at Louisville—Division of the Mississippi created—It included Burnside's and Rosecrans's departments—Alternate forms in regard to Rosecrans—He is relieved—Thomas succeeds him—Grant's relations to the change—His intellectual methods—Taciturnity—Patience—Discussions in his presence—Clear judgments—His "good anecdote"—Rosecrans sends Garfield to Washington—Congressman or General—Duplication of offices—Interview between Garfield and Stanton—Dana's dispatches—Garfield's visit to me—Description of the rout of Rosecrans's right wing—Effect on the general—Retreat to Chattanooga—Lookout Mountain abandoned—The President's problem—Dana's light upon it—Stanton's use of it—Grant's acquiescence—Subsequent relations of Garfield and Rosecrans—Improving the "cracker line"—Opening the Tennessee—Combat at Wauhatchie.

It is very evident that, at the close of September, Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Stanton had become satisfied that a radical change must be made in the organization of the Western armies. The plan of sending separate armies to co-operate, as Rosecrans's and Burnside's had been expected to do, was in itself vicious. It is, after a fashion, an attempt of two to ride a horse without one of them riding behind. Each will form a plan for his own army, as indeed he ought to do, and when one of them thinks the time has come for help from the other, that other may be out of reach or committed to operations which cannot readily be dropped. It is almost axiomatic that in any one theatre of operations there must be one head to direct. [Footnote: Napoleon used to ridicule the vicious practice of subdividing armies in the same theatre of war. He called it putting them up in small parcels, "des petits paquets." Memoirs of Gouvion St.-Cyr, vol. iv.] In the present case it ought to have been evident to the authorities at Washington that as soon as Burnside occupied East Tennessee, both distance and the peculiar conditions of his problem would forbid any efficient cooperation with Rosecrans. The latter was the junior in rank, and knew that, whatever might be Burnside's generosity, there were many possible contingencies in such a campaign in which the War Department might find it the easy solution of a difficulty to direct the senior officer to assume the command of both armies. So long as matters went well, Rosecrans had little or no communication with Burnside; but as soon as the enemy began to show a bold front, he became impatient for assistance. The perplexities of his own situation made him blind to those of Burnside. This is human nature, and was, no doubt, true of both in varying degrees. Halleck, at Washington, was in no true sense a commander of the armies....