from command. In the meantime the Confederate forces that had been left
to oppose Grant had attacked him and been signally defeated in two
engagements, in each of which General Rosecrans, who was serving under
Grant, was in immediate command on the Northern side. Rosecrans, who
therefore began to be looked upon as a promising general, and indeed was
one of those who, in the chatter of the time, were occasionally spoken of
as suitable for a "military dictatorship," was now put in Buell's place,
which Thomas had once refused. He advanced to Nashville, but was as firm
as Buell in refusing to go further till he had accumulated rations enough
to make him for a time independent of the railway. Ultimately he moved
on Murfreesborough, some thirty miles further in the direction of
Chattanooga. Here on December 31, 1862, Bragg, with somewhat inferior
numbers, attacked him and gained an initial success, which Rosecrans and
his subordinates, Thomas and Sheridan, were able to prevent him from
making good. Bragg's losses were heavy, and, after waiting a few days in
the hope that Rosecrans might retreat first, he fell back to a point near
the Cumberland mountains a little in advance of Chattanooga. Thus the
battle of Murfreesborough counted as a victory to the North, a slight
set-off to the disaster at Fredericksburg a little while before. But it
had no very striking consequences. For over six months Rosecrans
proceeded no further. The Northern armies remained in more secure
possession of all Tennessee west of the mountains than they had obtained
in the first half of 1862; but the length of their communications and the
great superiority of the South in cavalry, which could threaten those
communications, suspended their further advance. Lincoln urged that
their army could subsist on the country which it invaded, but Buell and
Rosecrans treated the idea as impracticable; in fact, till a little later
all Northern generals so regarded it.

Thus Chattanooga, which it was hoped would be occupied soon after Halleck
had occupied Corinth, remained in Southern hands for more than a year
after that, notwithstanding the removal of Buell, to whom this
disappointment and the mortifying invasion of Kentucky were at first
attributed. This was rightly felt to be unsatisfactory, but the chief
blame that can now be imputed falls upon the mistakes of Halleck while he
was still commanding in the West. There is no reason to suppose that
Buell