To Halleck, Thomas replied:
“I have the troops ready to make the attack on the enemy as soon as the sleet which now covers the ground has melted sufficiently to enable the men to march, as the whole country is now covered with a sheet of ice so hard and slippery that it is utterly impossible for troops to ascend the slopes, or even move upon level ground in anything like order. Under these circumstances I believe an attack at this time would only result in a useless sacrifice of life.”
The reply to this, unquestionably born of the panic to which allusion has been made, was an order sending General Logan to relieve Thomas. Grant himself then started from City Point for Nashville to assume general command. But the ice having melted, he was met at Washington by the news of Thomas’s victory.
The delay that Thomas had insisted upon, in the face of orders twice given for his relief, gave him the cavalry force he required for the decisive blow he intended to strike.
While the official inside at City Point and Washington bordered on panic, everything at Nashville was being pressed forward with activity and vigilance, and at the same time with deliberation, prudence, and the utmost imperturbability. At length, and at the first moment possible consistent with a reasonable expectation of success, the attack began.
THE ATTACK ON HOOD.
The developments of the battle, the energy and success of the pursuit, and the marvelous results of the whole, namely, the virtual destruction of a veteran army, reveal at every step what General Thomas had in mind when he insisted upon waiting till he could remount his cavalry.
In no other battle of the war did cavalry play such a prominent part as in that of Nashville. In no other pursuit did it so distinguish itself. Students of the movement will find themselves constantly questioning, as their investigations proceed, whether, with the force of infantry which General Thomas had been able to gather, Hood could have been driven from his position in front of Nashville without the co-operation of the cavalry. Had Thomas been obliged to fight without it, as the authorities at City Point and Washington tried to compel him to do, it is no reflection upon his infantry to say that there is ground for serious doubt as to the result. Hood was intrenched on strong ground. His positions were commanding. The infantry force against him was not sufficient in numbers and experience to make up for the usual difference due to field works placed as Hood’s were and manned by veterans. Unquestionably Wilson’s cavalry was the dominating and controlling element of the battle. To say this does not detract from the distinguished infantry generals or their excellent and brilliant work. But General Thomas’s plan turned on cavalry work as its directrix. His consultations with General Wilson had been exhaustive. That officer was charged with reorganizing, remounting, and refitting a great cavalry force, even as Thomas was organizing a new army—under fire. There had been nothing like either of those herculean tasks in any campaign.
Many officers have organized and built up an effective cavalry force in times of rest and peace, but no one except General Wilson ever did it in the heat and hurry of a desperate midwinter campaign. And he could not have succeeded, nor could any man have accomplished it, in the face of the interferences which were attempted, but for the protection and support of the peerless and imperturbable Thomas.