... If he can only
maintain this position, without more, this rebellion can only eke out a
short and feeble existence, as an animal sometimes may with a thorn in
its vitals."
And to Rosecrans he telegraphed directly, bidding him be of good cheer,
and adding: "We shall do our utmost to assist you." To this end the
administration took instant and energetic measures. On the night of
September 23, the President, General Halleck, several members of the
cabinet, and leading army and railroad officials met in an improvised
council at the War Department, and issued emergency orders under which
two army corps from the Army of the Potomac, numbering twenty thousand
men in all, with their arms and equipments ready for the field, the
whole under command of General Hooker, were transported from their camps
on the Rapidan by railway to Nashville and the Tennessee River in the
next eight days. Burnside, who had arrived at Knoxville early in
September, was urged by repeated messages to join Rosecrans, and other
reinforcements were already on the way from Memphis and Vicksburg.
All this help, however, was not instantly available. Before it could
arrive Rosecrans felt obliged to draw together within the fortifications
of Chattanooga, while Bragg quickly closed about him, and, by
practically blockading Rosecrans's river communication, placed him in a
state of siege.
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