A recent revival of the venerable charge that General George H. Thomas was slow at Nashville led to the publication, in the New York Sun of August 9, 1896, of the article which is here reproduced by the permission of that journal. A few brief additions have been made to the original text. It seemed the more important to some of the veterans of the Army of the Cumberland that this charge in its renewed form should be met, because it was put forth with a show of official authority which would natu

The concentration and organization of the fragments which finally made up the force with which he practically annihilated his enemy was one of the most remarkable accomplishments of the war. It was prosecuted and consummated in the immediate presence of the enemy, and a large portion of the work was performed during the continued movement, constant skirmishing, frequent affairs, and one great battle of an active campaign. Arriving at Nashville, the first point of concentration, General Thomas, a

It was under such circumstances and conditions which, after all, are but faintly shadowed forth by the facts here stated, that General Thomas began to concentrate his conglomerate forces in Hood’s front, and begin under fire the work of organizing and refitting an army. With superhuman effort, and such loyal assistance and energy from officers and soldiers as were not elsewhere exhibited during the war, because not previously required, General Thomas set about the task of preparing the means of

In spite of the plainest statements of the situation, of the great disparity of forces, of the dictates of prudence to remain on the defensive until he could strike an effective blow, which he expected to deliver in a few days, Thomas was prodded and nagged from City Point and Washington as no officer in command of an army had been before, and treated day by day as if he needed tutelage. In the last dispatch of the series of clear explanations,—which under other circumstances than the seething o

The developments of the battle, the energy and success of the pursuit, and the marvelous results of the whole, namely, the virtual destruction of a veteran army, reveal at every step what General Thomas had in mind when he insisted upon waiting till he could remount his cavalry. In no other battle of the war did cavalry play such a prominent part as in that of Nashville. In no other pursuit did it so distinguish itself. Students of the movement will find themselves constantly questioning, as the

Wilson’s cavalry was massed behind the extreme right. Steedman, on the left, early December 15, delivered a vigorous and successful attack. It was in the nature of a feint. Meantime the grand play with the cavalry began. Its part was the imposing swinging movement of 12,000 mounted men against and around the Confederate left. Before the short, lowering winter day had closed, this force had overrun several redoubts on the enemy’s left, capturing them and their artillery by assaults, swept for eig

There was one thing in which General Thomas was slow. He was not swift to give expression to indignation over wrong treatment. To this latter, as the culmination of the series, he at last responded with this crushing statement: “General Hood’s army is being pursued as rapidly and as vigorously as it is possible for one army to pursue another. We cannot control the elements, and you must remember that to resist Hood’s advance into Tennessee I had to reorganize and almost thoroughly equip the forc

Six divisions of the cavalry corps were put in camp, extending for twelve miles along the north bank of the Tennessee from Gravelly Springs to Waterloo Landing. A winter campaign was laid out at army headquarters for Thomas’s army, to begin without rest or refitting—the resting to be done by proxy in the vicinity of City Point. But owing to rains and unusual floods this plan for Thomas could not be pursued, and the time was improved for a vigorous and rapid refitting of his forces. Early in Marc

General Wilson’s command remained at Selma about a week, making active preparations for its next stroke, which was to be against Montgomery, the former capital of the Confederacy. It was necessary to prepare a thousand feet of bridging to cross the Alabama River, then at flood tide and filled with floating débris . Equipments of every kind were looked after and the most careful refitting of the whole command took place, the Confederate stores taken offering abundant facilities for such important

Columbus was the great manufacturing center of the Confederacy, and this destruction inflicted irreparable damage. While little was known at the North of this sweep of Wilson’s columns through the industrial centers and military storehouses of the Confederacy, it is easy to understand that these fatal blows at vital points of interior military supply added to the demoralization and discouragement attending the evacuation of Richmond and the gathering storm about the armies of Lee and Johnson. Th

From the first this cavalry campaign had proceeded according to a clearly formed plan. It was made after full conference with General Wilson. First, it was decided that to render an attack upon Hood’s line certain of success a sufficient cavalry force must be in hand to turn his flank. The next requirement, that of pursuing so effectively as to break up Hood, could not be met without sufficient cavalry. So General Thomas held on in the face of what has been related till he was so nearly ready to