gh he preferred the command of troops, he was
assigned at once to duty as Chief Engineer of the Department and Army
of the Cumberland. Fortunately this gave him the control, not only of
the engineer troops and materials, and the engineer operations of that
army, but carried with it the right and duty of knowing the army's
condition and requirements as well as all the plans which might be
considered for extricating it from the extraordinary perils and
difficulties which surrounded it.

Although efforts have been made at various times and by various
writers, to minimize these perils and difficulties, it cannot be denied
that the situation of that army was at that epoch an exceedingly grave
one. It had been rudely checked, if not completely beaten, in one of
the most desperate and bloody battles of the war, and shut up in
Chattanooga by Bragg's army on the south, and by an almost impassable
mountain region on the north and west. Its communication by rail with
its secondary base at Bridgeport, and with its primary base at
Nashville, had been broken by the Confederate cavalry and rendered most
uncertain. Its supplies were scanty and growing daily less, while its
artillery horses and draft mules were dying by hundreds, for lack of
forage. The only safe wagon roads to the rear were by a long and
circuitous route through the mountains north of the Tennessee River,
which was besides so rough and muddy that the teams could haul hardly
enough for their own subsistence, much less an adequate supply for the
troops.

All the contemporary accounts go to show that Rosecrans, while
personally brave enough, was himself more or less confused and excited
by the great disaster which had overtaken his army at Chickamauga. He
had been cut off and greatly shaken by the overthrow of his right wing,
and consequently retired with it to Chattanooga. Notwithstanding this
unfortunate withdrawal and his failure to rejoin the organized portion
of his army, which under General George H. Thomas, held on firmly to
its position against every attack, those who knew Rosecrans best still
believed him to be a most loyal and gallant gentleman who was anxious
and willing to do all that could be done to save his army and maintain
its advanced position. But there is no satisfactory evidence that up to
the time he turned over his command to his successor, he had formed any
adequate or comprehensive plan for supplying it or getting it ready to
resume the offensiv