"Throw the Bottle Up the Hill"

Once many years ago I was asked what my personal motto was. At the time I didn't know how to answer, but a couple years back, while doing some research on American history, I read a passage that made an impression on me such that it finally furnished the answer to that original question.

The passage is from the book American Caesar by William Manchester. It's a biography of General Douglas MacArthur, whom I have come not only to admire, but to regard as one of the most misunderstood figures in American history, for reasons that would take too long to explain here.

The passage that made such a personal impact on me is from the second chapter (pages 14-15), and is actually about the American Civil War. It turns out that MacArthur's father, Arthur MacArthur, was a famous hero of a very pivotal but since overlooked battle in that conflict.

The battle took place in late 1863, months after Gettysburg and Vicksburg had "broken the back" of the South. But if you think that the North had won the war at this point, you'd be quite mistaken. In fact, from the account quoted here alone, it seems quite possible that the Union could have lost (at least in the sense of failing to defeat the South).

The reason is that Lincoln in his famous brilliance as Commander-in-Chief had authorized an invasion of a huge Union force into the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Tennessee, and they had gotten trapped there in miserable conditions. It was not out of the realm of possibility that the trapped troops might have been forced to surrender. If so, the Confederacy might well have forced a peace that at least allowed it to survive. History might have played out very differently.

But that's not what happened. Instead, in perhaps the blackest moment of the war for the North, a near "miracle" happened that turned the tide of not only the battle but the entire campaign in the Mid South. Instead of being forced to surrender, the Union forces broke through towards Atlanta and onto the sea. The Confederacy was doomed.

But really what caused this turning of the tide wasn't a miracle at all, at least as I read it.

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

Missionary Ridge overlooks Chattanooga, and few will envy it. The vast crescent of peaks on the horizon is undeniably majestic, but the city itself, as seen from the ridge, is flat and drab. The tainted coils of the Tennessee River wind sluggishly through the downtown area. Squat bridges span them. Switch engines shuttle in the railroad yards, cutting strings of boxcars, collecting trains. Tall chimneys emit dense smoke, for Chattanooga has become an important industrial center; standing on the brow of the ridge, one sees the soaring Jaycees Tower, the Quaker Oaks and Central Soya mills, three banks, a factory manufacturing electrical components for nuclear-reactor systems, and many ugly water towers. The residential neighborhoods visible below are shabby, for those who can afford better homes have built on the uplands, including Missionary Ridge itself, which, though bisected at one point by the six lanes of interstate route 75, is for the most part pleasant and serene.

The prospect was very different on the drizzly evening of Tuesday, November 24, 1863. The ridge, then a tangle of rock, thick vines, pine, and oak, was in the possession of Braxton Bragg's Confederate Army of the Tennessee, 46,165 strong. A continuous chain of gray-clad sentries in forage caps walked the crest; the muzzles of their bronze cannon, defended by two lines of works, looked down on the city, a thousand feet below. where the 59,359 men of the Union Army of the Cumberland had pitched their tents. The federal troops were under siege. Though led by Lincoln's best generals --- Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Hooker, Thomas --- they seemed to be at Bragg's mercy. Threatened with starvation, the besieged had lost so many horses for lack of food that there were not enough of them to take a battery into action. The best the frustrated Grant could do was order his men to "feel" the Confederate position the next morning. Around midnight the sky cleared, and Wednesday dawned bright. An intricate series of maneuvers by Sherman ended in a ravine on Bragg's right. Stalled, Sherman asked for a demonstration elsewhere to relieve the pressure on him. The only Northern troops not engaged lay behind breastworks in the city. They had been awaiting instructions since morning. At 3:30 PM, Grant sent them word to seize the rifle pits at the base of the ridge --- the very center of Bragg's line. Sallying out of Chattanooga, they deployed in line for the attack...

By 4:15 the men were ready. At 4:20 the signal guns were heard --- six cannon shots fired at intervals of two seconds --- and the assault began. It was still meant to be no more than a feint, drawing off some of the graycoats facing Sherman, but events swiftly acquired a momentum of their own; after the pits had been taken at bayonet point there occurred what James M. Merrill later called "one of the most dramatic moves in the entire war." The situation at the base of the cliff had become impossible. Exposed to plunging fire from above, the demonstrators were trapped, an exigency unanticipated by their commanders. Logic suggested immediate retreat: they had fulfilled their mission. Instead the troops advanced upward. Legend has it that Phil Sheridan drained a half-pint of whiskey, hurled the bottle up the slope, and yelled "Here's how!" and climbed after it. According to another account, he raised his hat, a gesture interpreted by the soldiers as a command to charge. But when a staff officer rode up to find out what was happening, Sheridan said he had done nothing and was mystified. The truth is that they were witnessing an act of magnificent insubordination: eighteen thousand blue-clad boys, infuriated by the musketry scything their ranks, had sprung at the heights on their own.

Grant, watching the advancing white line of musket fire from Orchard Knob, turned in his saddle and asked angrily, "Thomas, who ordered those men up the ridge?" Thomas said he didn't know; he certainly hadn't. Then Grant wheeled on General Gordon Granger. "Did you order them up?" Granger answered, "No, they started up without orders." Fuming, Grant muttered, "Well, it will be all right if it turns out all right."

By now, sixty Union battle flags were rising towards the crest..

As for the rest of the story, including the reason why Arthur MacArthur was a Wisconsin hero for the rest of his life, and earned his son an appointment at West Point, you'll have to go read it for yourself. It's only nine bucks on Kindle download. What an incredible time we live in.