Breaking News 1859: From the Field
From Chattanooga
"It is the grandest military movement of the war, this massing of
troops on the center--like movements on a chess-board--everything else has
become subordinate to this grand attack on the enemy's centre at
Chattanooga, which is in reality the Key to the whole position. When I say
whole position, I mean the whole line of our contending armies as they
stretch from the Potomac to Texas, and so considered, the present movement
for our armies toward the centre of such a line, is the grandest military
movement of any age. If we are in time, we shall be able to overwhelm the
rebel forces in our front and from Chattanooga, we are in position to knock
loudly at the back-doors of Charleston & Richmond. I feel the natural
ardor of a soldier & a patriot, in such a momentous undertaking and all
merely personal things are for the moment lost sight of."
Colonel Edward J. Wood, 48th Indiana, to his wife, October 7, 1863, as he marched to join
the fight for the "Gateway to the Deep South," Chattanooga. A Fierce,
Wild Joy: The Civil War Letters of Colonel Edward J. Wood, 48th Indiana
Volunteer Infantry Regiment, edited by Stephen E. Towne.
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