Our unmolested retirement from Rossville
lent additional force to the belief that the enemy had been badly
injured, and further impressed me with the conviction that we might
have held on. Indeed, the battle of Chickamauga was somewhat like
that of Stone River, victory resting with the side that had the grit
to defer longest its relinquishment of the field.
The manoeuvres by which Rosecrans had carried his army over the
Cumberland Mountains, crossed the Tennessee River, and possessed
himself of Chattanooga, merit the highest commendation up to the
abandonment of this town by Bragg on the 8th of September; but I have
always fancied that that evacuation made Rosecrans over-confident,
and led him to think that he could force Bragg south as far as Rome.
After the Union army passed the river and Chattanooga fell into our
hands; we still kept pressing the enemy's communications, and the
configuration of the country necessitated more or less isolation of
the different corps. McCook's corps of three divisions had crossed
two difficult ridges--Sand and Lookout mountains--to Alpine in
Broomtown Valley with intentions against Summerville.
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