before Lee. Grant's army was doing nothing to occupy Johnston in Mississippi, and there was no such Union activity in front of Mobile and Charleston as prevented troops being spared to Bragg from those points. And so, while the Washington authorities were finding fault with Rosecrans while he was pushing some of the most brilliant and effectual moves of the war, and were not even lifting a finger to encourage or even to protect him, the Richmond government was neglecting no means to strengthen Bragg to the extent of its powers. As a result, in one week from the date of Halleck's telegram inquiring whether Bragg was re-enforcing Lee, Longstreet and Johnston and Walker and Buckner had reached Bragg from the extremes of the Confederacy, and he had moved to attack Rosecrans with 70,000 men.

In this criminal neglect of Rosecrans the authorities were without excuse. No friend of Stanton's or Halleck's have even yet attempted to explain, much less defend it. These and other high officers, at one time or another, arraigned General Rosecrans as solely responsible for what they chose to designate as the disaster and defeat of Chickamauga. It was the shortest way for some of them to divert attention from the terrible neglect and responsibility which rested on their heads. But even if the favorable chances for the concentration of Confederate forces against Rosecrans had escaped unwilling observation at Washington, the authorities there were without excuse, since the case was very pointedly placed before them in an editorial of the Cincinnati Commercial, which excited so much attention that the editor was officially notified that such articles were highly indiscreet. This was as early as September 1. In view of what occurred a few weeks later, and of the evidence it gives of ample warning, it is interesting to reproduce this editorial of Mr. Halstead, printed on the date named, under a title, a "Point of Danger." Said the editor:

"Jeff Davis and his generals are as well informed as we are of the presence of a considerable part of the army of the Potomac in New York City to enforce the draft, and that consequently an advance on Richmond need not be apprehended for some weeks. They have also heard of the presence of Admiral Farragut in New York, and infer from the circumstance that there is no immediate danger of an attack on Mobile. They know the situation at Charleston, and are not mistaken in the opinion that the advance upon that city must be slow, by process of engineering, digging, and heavy cannonading. They do not need large bodies of troops to make the defense; negro laborers, engineer officers and gunners being all that are required. General Grant's army, as is well known, is, for the most part, resting from its labors in undisputed possession of an enormous territory. The real aggressive movement of the Federal forces is upon the rebel center; that is to say, East Tennessee, and it is extremely unlikely that the rebels are deficient in information as to the strength and intentions of Generals Rosecrans and Burnside.

"The important question is whether they will improve the opportunity by concentrating upon their center. The reports that General Joe Johnston has joined his forces to those recently under Bragg, and has thus gathered a force almost if not quite equal numerically to those in the hands of General Rosecrans, have in addition the immense advantages of the occupation of mountain passes, and that are to be found in pursuing a defensive system of warfare. General Lee is reported to have sent troops to East Tennessee, and it is probable that he has done so, as, thanks to the New York riots, he has some divisions temporarily to spare from Virginia. If the rebels do give up East Tennessee and Northern Georgia without a struggle, that is to say, if Generals Rosecrans and Burnside complete the operations in which they are engaged without meeting serious resistance, it may be taken as conclusive evidence of the exhaustion of the rebellion."

Several subsequent editorials enforced these ideas, and were even so definite as to point out Johnston, Longstreet, and Buckner as the commands which were likely to re-enforce Bragg.

General Rosecrans had had these general points of danger in mind, and made them known to the Government nearly a month before he crossed the Tennessee. But his request for more men and flanking supports was refused at the War Department with much warmth and most inconsiderate emphasis. This Commercial editorial, therefore, startled him, and his records show that he sent Mr. Halstead a sharp letter intimating that such an editorial was little better than a call to the Jeff Davis government to fall on him. It was, however, the clear common sense of the situation; and if the Washington authorities had heeded it, instead as was their custom, sneering at "newspaper generals" and newspaper ways of carrying on the war, many lives would have been saved at Chickamauga which were lost because of the unequal contest, and there would never have been any questioning of that costly, but no less decided victory.

It is further true that General Peck, stationed in North Carolina, sent word to General Rosecrans, under date of September 6, that Longstreet's corps was passing southward over the railroads. Colonel Jacques, of the Seventy-third Illinois, who had come up from the South, tried in vain for ten days to gain admittance in Washington, to communicate this fact of Longstreet's movement to Halleck and Stanton, and then, without accomplishing it, started West, and reached his command in time to fight with the regiment at Chickamauga. There had been time enough, after General Rosecrans's explanations of his proposed plan, to force Burnside, with twenty thousand men, down from East Tennessee, and to have brought all needed strength for the other flank from the Army of the Tennessee on the Mississippi. Even when ordered up, after the battle, this latter loitered to a degree that its commander will never be able to satisfactorily explain.

To return from this digression, Bragg on the 13th had ordered an attack by three corps on Crittenden. The latter, by his great activity and by the bold operations of Van Cleve, Wood, Palmer, and the brigades of Hazen, Minty, and Wilder, had created the impression of much greater strength than they really had, and Polk moved cautiously. Finally, just as he was ready to attack, his column on the Lafayette road encountered Van Cleve moving on him with a single brigade of infantry. So vigorously did this officer attack that he forced Polk's advance back for three miles, and created the impression of a general Union advance. This disconcerted Polk, and instead of ordering his forces forward, he halted, took up a defensive position, and sent to Bragg for re-enforcements. Thus Negley and Baird, by their pluck and skill in front of overwhelming forces, and Palmer and Crittenden's active divisions and attached brigades on the left, by their unhesitating attacks wherever they developed the enemy, and by this last one delivered in the face of an advance of three full corps on one, had made the concentration of the army possible, and had saved it. The next day Steedman, that lion of battle, had reached Rossville, in immediate support of Crittenden, with two brigades of his own command and two regiments and two batteries temporarily attached, having marched from Bridgeport, a distance of forty miles, in twenty-eight hours.

The appearance and wonderful activity of Hazen, Wilder, and Minty's brigades on the left of Crittenden's, and Steedman's forces of the reserve corps at Rossville, with the fact that McCook was nearing Thomas, and that the latter had extended his left to within near supporting distance of Crittenden, seem to have restrained Bragg from attack in any direction after the failure of his orders to Polk to attack on the 13th until his orders of the night of the 17th for an attack the