THE PHRASEOLOGY OF GENERAL THOMAS'S REPORT
It seems proper for me to say that I have never claimed for myself any part of the credit due to subordinates that day (December 16). Having failed in the night of December 15 to obtain any appropriate orders for my action, or for the conjoint action of the corps on my right and left, and also to obtain any such orders on the 16th, the only orders I gave were those to support the movements on my right and left initiated by the subordinate commanders there. For this action General Thomas, in his report, gave the full credit due to my troops, and, inferentially at least, more than was due to me. I must also add, in order that there may be no misunderstanding on the subject, that General Thomas also gave full credit to me and to the Twenty-third Corps for the part we took in the battle of December 15.
The only special credit to which I have thought myself entitled in respect to Nashville was for two incidental services which General Thomas did not seem to think worthy even of mention. They were, in fact, only such services as any efficient staff officer possessed of unusual knowledge of the character and habits of the opposing commander could have rendered to General Thomas as well as I could. The two services referred to were the suggestion relative to the change in the details of the plan of battle for December 15, by which the infantry attacking force on our right was increased from about ten thousand to nearly twenty thousand men; and the information I gave to General Thomas, in the night of the 15th, that Hood would not retreat without another fight, about which I had not the slightest doubt, and which seemed to me more important than the information I had given about the relative lengths of the several parts of the enemy's line of defense and of his (General Thomas's) line of attack, as proposed in his written orders. But these little services, not worthy of mention in terms of special praise, seemed to me worthy of record, especially the latter, since I had made a long ride in a dark night, after having already been in the saddle from daylight till dark, to carry the information to the commanding general in person, and try to convince him of its correctness.
A single word signifies sometimes much more than is imagined by him who uses it. If General Thomas had said resumed instead of "continued," his statement of what he said he "directed" would have corresponded very nearly with what was actually done after those directions were given on December 16. But the continuation, at 3 or 4 P. M. of one day, of action which had been suspended at nightfall the preceding day, hardly accords with the rule of accuracy which is demanded in maturely considered military reports. Indeed, when a military movement is suspended at nightfall on account of darkness, it is properly spoken of as resumed, not "continued," even at daylight. The word "continued" was used to express what was directed to be done at three or four o'clock in the afternoon —"the movement against the enemy's left flank," which was not any movement that had been going on that day and which could therefore be continued, but the movement which, in fact, had ended the day before in a very important success which had materially altered the military situation under which the orders for the previous day had been given. Hence the use of the word "continued" furnishes food for thought. To have resumed, some time in the afternoon, those operations of the preceding day would have been to state that they had been suspended, not only during the night on account of darkness, but during the greater part of the next day for no apparent reason. That would have been manifestly inconsistent with the theory that the operations of the second day were only a continuation of those of the first, all in accordance with the plan of battle published two days before, upon which theory the reports of General Thomas and of some of the sub-commanders appear to have been based. The logical conclusion of this reflection, in view of all the facts now established by the records, seems to be that the plan of battle for December 16 was matured and published to the army, as well as to the world at large, some time after the event.
THE PHRASEOLOGY OF GENERAL THOMAS'S REPORT
It may be worthy of note that none of the officers whose reports reveal their ignorance of that plan belonged to the Army of the Cumberland, with which General Thomas had so long been identified.
[( 1) War Records, Vol. XVL, part ii, p. 184.]
CHAPTER XV General Thomas's Indorsement on the Report of the Battle of Franklin —Courtesies to Him in Washington—Peculiarities of the Official Records in Regard to Franklin and Nashville—Documents Which Have Disappeared from the Records—Inconsistencies in General Thomas's Report—False Representations Made to Him—Their Falsity Confirmed by General Grant.
After I parted from General Thomas in Tennessee, having at our last meeting there congratulated him on his well-deserved promotion to the highest permanent grade, that of major-general in the regular army, I had no further official intercourse with him, and, so far as I can recollect, did not see him until after June 1, 1868, when I entered the War Department. During the intervening time—more than three years—my attention had been absorbed by important duties, including a mission to France in defense of the then violated "Monroe doctrine," and command in Virginia during a part of the period of "reconstruction." I had not even seen the official reports of the campaign in Tennessee, they having been made public while I was in Europe.