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Chattanooga
pered Grant, but deferred to his judgment. Ac-cordingly the movements in the western theatreof war began to keep time to Grant’s ideas andnot to Halleck’s, and there was an end of thatslowness upon which Bragg had counted. On the24th of October, the morning after his Arrival of
arrival at Chattanooga , Grant sent Sherman at
word to oherman to “ drop every-
thing” and hurry to Stevenson with his entireforce. The result was that, in spite of brokenbridges and long detours thereby necessitated,Sherman got his army up to Stevenson and Bridge-port by the 14th of November, and next day re-ported in person to Grant at Chattanooga . Atthis moment Longstreet, who had encounteredunforeseen obstacles to a rapid progress, had gotscarcely half way on his march to Knoxville .Throughout the northern states, the anxiety forBurnside was intense, but Sherman’s arrival atChattanooga put a new face upon things, andenabled Grant to strike a blow so tremendous thatamong its far-reaching consequences the rescueof Burnside and the relief of eastern Tennessee appear but as minor incidents.
The wagon-road from Bridgeport through Look-out valley and the narrow gorge to Brown’sKerry was now to become a channel for reinforce-ments as well as supplies. Sherman’s whole army