ARMY AND CORPS COMMANDERS OF THE ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE
Left to Right—Front Row, Major-General W. T. Sherman, Major-General U. S. Grant, Major-General James B. McPherson, Major-General O. O. Howard. Rear row, Major-General John A. Logan, Major-General G. M. Dodge, Major-General Frank P. Blair. Extreme right, Brigadier-General John A. Fuller, leading Division of the Sixteenth Army Corps. Copy of painting by James E. Taylor for Major-General W. T. Sherman.
THE ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE
Address to the Army of the Tennessee
Delivered at the National Encampment, G. A. R.
Washington, D. C., October, 1902
By Major-general Grenville M. Dodge
Comrades of the Army of the Tennessee:
On the 28th of August, 1861, General U. S. Grant was assigned to duty in command of the District of Southeast Missouri, with headquarters at Cairo, Ill., and here commenced the organization and growth of the Army of the Tennessee. It remained under his personal command, or as a unit of his great Army, from the beginning until the end of the war, except for two short intervals, one after the great Battle of Donelson, and the other after the greater Battle of Shiloh, both of which he won, and gave the first great light and hope to our country; and it is hard now, after reading all the records, to understand the reasons for his being relieved. It appears to have been done through a misunderstanding, and with no intention of doing injustice to General Grant.
Following General Grant as commander came General Sherman, a member of the Army almost as long as General Grant. General Sherman was in direct command, or the Army served under him as a unit of his greater Army, from the time he assumed command until the end of the war.
After General Sherman came General McPherson, that ideal soldier, who commanded the Army until he fell in the great Battle of Atlanta, on the 22d of July. Upon his death, General Logan took command of the Army, as the senior officer present, and at the end of the battle of July 22d he could say that he had met and defeated Hood's whole Army in the greatest battle of that campaign.
Following General Logan came General O. O. Howard, the only General taken from another Army to command it in all the history of the Army of the Tennessee, or even any of its Corps. The next day after assuming command General Howard led the Army into the great battle of the 28th of July, which the Confederates said was not a battle, but a simple killing and slaughtering of their forces. He remained in command until the end of the Rebellion, and at the end of the war generously gave way to General Logan, so that one of its original members might command it at the great review here in Washington—an act that could come only from such a just and thoughtful soldier as Howard.