When the summit was reached by the Union troops, the scene of confusion and flight of the Confederate forces, down the eastern slope of the ridge, was wonderful to behold.
General Thomas in his report,[40] says: “Our troops advancing steadily in a continuous line, the enemy, seized with panic, abandoned the works at the foot of the hill and retreated precipitately to the crest, where they were closely followed by our troops, who, apparently inspired by the impulse of victory, carried the hill simultaneously at six different points, and so closely upon the heels of the enemy, that many of them were taken prisoners in the trenches. We captured all their cannon and ammunition before they could be removed or destroyed.”
In the meantime Hooker was advancing toward Thomas’s right with his line stretched across the ridge, at right angles to it. Stewart’s troops, seeing their left threatened by Hooker, tried to escape down the eastern slope toward Ringgold, but encountering there Osterhaus’s troops, moved northward along the base; here they ran into Johnson’s division, and more than a thousand were captured. After General Baird’s division had gained the summit, Stewart wheeled his division to the left, across the crest, and advanced toward the troops, resisting General Sherman. He had not advanced far before he met Cheatham’s forces in line across the crest; the contest here lasted until after dark. During the night all the Confederate forces retreated across the Chickamauga, burned the bridges, and continued their flight to Taylor’s Ridge, near Ringgold, the nearest heights across the Chickamauga Valley, sixteen miles in a straight line southeast. General Sheridan, after halting a few moments on top of the ridge to reform his troops, pushed on to Chickamauga Creek; he captured 300 prisoners, 13 cannon, and a train of 12 wagons.
Mr. C. A. Dana sent a dispatch to the Secretary of War at 10 a. m. November 26, which contained the following paragraph: “The storming of the ridge by our troops was one of the greatest miracles in military history. No man who climbs the ascent by any of the roads that wind along its front can believe that 18,000 men were moved up its broken and crumbling face unless it was his fortune to witness the deed. It seems as awful as a visible interposition of God. Neither Grant, nor Thomas intended it. Their orders were to carry the rifle-pits along the base of the ridge, and capture their occupants; but when this was accomplished, the unaccountable spirit of the troops bore them bodily up those impracticable steeps, over the bristling rifle-pits on the crest, and the thirty cannon enfilading every gully.”
General Grant says in his report that he intended the lines should be readjusted and ascend the ridge if they were successful at the base. The reports of the corps and division commanders indicate that some of them misunderstood the orders. The men advanced without special orders, however, when they found the position at the foot of the ridge too much exposed to the plunging fire of the enemy. In some instances they were even called back to the foot after proceeding part way up the hill. The assault was made, however, and was so successful, that no one was court-martialed; no one was bold enough to repudiate the responsibility for its initiation. General Grant did not hesitate to modify his original plans from time to time, when inevitable circumstances showed him that some other movement than the one laid down was essential to success. This characteristic is the quality of a great general.
The artillery also under command of General Brannan did fine service during the assault. The large guns in Forts Wood, Sherman, Cheatham, and battery Rousseau directed their fire first upon the Confederate line at the foot of the ridge, as did four light batteries in front of Chattanooga. When the Union line was ascending the ridge, this artillery turned their shots to the entrenched Confederate line on top. The enemy’s artillery and musketry seemed largely to have over-shot the Union lines; the records do not show that the Union troops suffered as heavy losses during the time they were under fire, as the enemy’s apparently advantageous position would warrant. It is also probable that the audacity of the blue coats in assaulting the top of the ridge surprised the Confederates and induced nervousness, wild shooting, terror, confusion, and flight.
The Union troops did not advance up the ridge as if on parade; but conformed more or less to the contour of the ground; the line appeared to an onlooker as a zigzag one; but the standards were always where they ought to be, and there were no stragglers. They did not fire their muskets to any extent while advancing, although they received a constant wild fire from the enemy. It was an assault by the musket bearers, and it is not likely they received many orders from their officers. As soon as the Union troops gained the crest at one point, although it appeared as if the six different points were gained simultaneously, it greatly assisted the rest of the troops, who were so near the crest. The Confederates began to fall back as soon as the first Union troops gained the top. General Bragg tried to send his troops from a less threatened point to one more in danger, but his attempt failed, because his men saw better than he seemed to do that all was lost when one point was carried. This observation applies only of course to the isolated line on the right and left of Bragg’s headquarters, which was attacked by General Thomas’s troops. His troops further to the right, beyond an unoccupied space—such as Cheatham’s division—were not affected that way, because they turned on left wheel, and attacked Baird’s division on the crest.
The Union troops, which were called back to the foot of the ridge by those officers who thought their orders carried them only thus far, caused Bragg to believe that they had been repulsed by the fire of his troops; he rode along his line congratulating them, when he was informed that his line was broken further to the right, and the Union forces had crowned the ridge. The victory was gained too late in the evening to ensure an effective pursuit. The enemy had all night, after crossing the Chickamauga, in which to move undisturbed his troops and wagon trains; he made the distance between himself and the pursuing force as great as possible before morning. General Grant was apparently justified in waiting for Hooker to arrive at Rossville before he ordered Thomas’s advance, but he was not justified in waiting so long as he did for Sherman’s expected capture of Tunnel Hill. Yet who could hope or believe that Thomas’s troops could successfully assault so formidable a position as they did? Hooker was delayed four hours in crossing Chattanooga Creek. If Grant had sent Howard’s Corps at 10 a. m. on the 25th to Rossville in Hooker’s place, instead of sending it to Sherman, and as soon as it was in position, ordered Thomas, Howard, and Sherman to advance in unison, the same result would have occurred at one or two o’clock as was secured much later, and then the four and a half or five hours of daylight would have been sufficient to injure the Confederate Army very greatly before it could have crossed the Chickamauga. But it is very easy to look back and criticise. On the battlefield there may be reasons, apparent to a commander, why these supposable movements could not be made that are not so palpable to a historian, who may lose sight of all the complex situations, the inside knowledge of the commander, and his fearful responsibility to the country.
The pursuit was taken up on the morning of the 26th by General Hooker’s troops and Palmer’s Fourteenth Corps. Hooker attacked the enemy in a strong position at Ringgold Gap on Taylor’s Ridge; he lost heavily without inflicting corresponding injury on the enemy. The Fourth Corps was marched back to the city on the morning of the 26th to make preparations for the relief of Burnside at Knoxville.
On the 27th, the pursuit was abandoned at Ringgold, twenty-three miles by rail south of Chattanooga. General Grant telegraphed from that place at 2 p. m. to General Halleck at Washington, D. C.: “I am not prepared to continue pursuit further.” The official reports neither give the strength of the Union Army nor of the Confederate Army. At the time of the attack on Missionary Ridge the Union Army outnumbered largely the Confederate Army. A large part of this disparity in numbers was offset by the extraordinarily strong position of the Confederate forces, and the fact that the Union Army was the aggressor. Could Bragg have commanded the resources that Grant did, he would have gladly availed himself of them in order to outnumber the Union Army; no false notions of chivalry prevented either army from availing itself of any great advantage in battle, which is habitually taken where war is waged. The Confederate boast at the beginning of the war that one Confederate could out-fight five Yankees—as all northern troops were called by the Confederates—was rather incompatible with their complaint after the war, that they were crushed only by weight of numbers.