Today in History:

203 Series I Volume XXXI-I Serial 54 - Knoxville and Lookout Mountain Part I

Page 203 Chapter XLIII. REOPENING OF THE TENNESSEE RIVER.

Brigade lost the road and was involved in a swamp. It mentions that the junction was executed. All that is mentioned there is expressly directed to the First Brigade, that never formed a junction with General Geary, and the report of Major-General Hooker labors under the misapprehension and misconstruction that the brigade involved in a swamp was identical with the brigade that marched through to Geary. We cannot understand how this misapprehension was possible, but it is certain that it could have been avoided. The censure in regard to courage and valor was principally based on the fact that an untrue and mean excuse had been preferred by the brigade that joined Geary to cover its unfortunate delay is received in the official report, and evidence before you shows that this is untrue and false; and with the structure crumbles the censure.

Answer 5. The terrific infantry fire is in the report introduced as a guide. Somebody who has lost no road, and has shown it by marching on that road without stopping, needs no guide to show him the road, and evidence is before you that Third Brigade found the road without meeting an obstacle or being lost. But if we can show that when the guide existed he was not of the promised quality, and that at the time he should show the road was a non-existence, another part of the report cannot stand the trial. Noah Webster's Dictionary consulted by us says that terrific means causing terror. We must confess we never had thought that the firing heard at Wauhatchie could create terror in any man's mind. Its intensity, duration, is in the memory of the honorable members of the Court, who all heard it; it is not necessary to compare it with Leipsic and Waterloo; and General Hooker himself declares in his testimony that it was only severe, an honest attack, an intention of the enemy to whip Geary, and the engagement at Tyndale's Hill he styles a slight skirmish. Should the enemy have had at Geary the masses of terror, and at the so important gap only a few skirmishers? Nothing is impossible, as General Hooker's aide heard only about a dozen shots fired, where we lost in killed and wounded that number. I need not enter into discussion about fires not severe, and attack without intention to whip; it seems to me that the evidence is given that the guide was not a terrific one.

But [Answers 6 and 7] I can show that at the time when my brigade was halted on the cross-road, if not all the firing at General Geary's was over it ended a few minutes afterward, and that at the time, when for the first time I received the orders to march to Geary, there was no firing at all in that direction. Captain Stinson states that the fire at Geary's had just ended when the advanced brigade [Tyndale's] arrived near the hill, although the troops could not have marched quicker-a statement in perfect harmony with Captain Greenhut [and] witnesses at that time posted at different and distant points. Let us compare with this the statement of Lieutenant Klutsh, who held his watch in hand and positively declares that it was ten minutes past 1 o'clock when the troops of the division did begin to march from their camps, and Lieutenant Mueller confirms the depositions of the other witnesses, and even where in other testimonies the time is fixed with less precision we find nothing to the contrary; and to our own observation from the place where Third Brigade was encamped, about 400 yards west west-northwest of General Howard's headquarters in a stump field at the foot of the Raccoon Mountain, to Wauhatchie it is not far from 3 miles, as General Hooker himself estimates the distance; and if we compare the time given by Lieutenant Klutsch and others with the time elapsed until the order to


Page 203 Chapter XLIII. REOPENING OF THE TENNESSEE RIVER.