Tragic school bus accident at Chattanooga, Tennessee and the Battle of Chattanooga

There was a terrible school bus accident at Chattanooga, Tennessee two days ago; my heart go out to the victims, and my mind go back to today (November 23) in 1863 when the last battle began in Chattanooga, Tennessee (two battles took place here previously).  Many Union generals participated here, the likes of Grant, Thomas and Sherman.  About 100,000 soldiers involved.

Falling sick after returning from Gettysburg, Lincoln, lay in bed, received the victory telegraph.  The Union Army victory set the stage for the Atlanta Campaign (one should at least know the “Atlanta burning” scene in the move Gone with the Wind, and the Gate Way to the Deep South opened up) and Sherman’s March to the Sea.

General Thomas is also from Virginia, unlike Robert Lee, he decided to stay and fight for the Union.  There is a Thomas Circle in Washington, D.C.  I always thought about him wherever I drove through this circle.

Lincoln asked Francis Blair Sr. to talk to Lee, asking him to take the command of the army; Lee declined. Lee wrote to General Scott, “Save in the defense of my native States I never again desire to draw my sword. . . . If Virginia stands by the old Union, so will I. But if she secedes (though I do not believe in secession as a constitutional right, nor that there is sufficient cause for revolution) then I will still follow my native State with my sword, and, if need be, with my life.” Lee basically said, “Regardless, if Virginia goes, I go!”

Jefferson David, returning to Richmond, proclaiming his faith in Bragg and his army, “Bragg is to bag Grant at Chattannooga as Grant had bagged Pemberton at Vicksburg.”

Carl Sandburg wrote, “Ten thousand animals in a few weeks had perished hauling rations overland to Chattanooga before a river route was opened”

We tend to forget the animals are as much the victims of the war as humans are.