Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/184

Immediately after hearing from General Garfield, the Commanding General sent the first telegraphic report of the day's events to Washington. He wired: “We have met with a serious disaster. Extent not yet ascertained. Enemy overwhelmed us, drove our right, pierced our centre and scattered troops there. Thomas, who had seven divisions, remained intact at last news.” This was a sorry sequel to his report of the first day's battle, which had closed with these words: “By the blessing of Providence, the defeat of the enemy will be total to-morrow.” Far worse tidings had already reached the national authorities in the frantic, terror-stricken messages to the Secretary of War of Charles A. Dana, whom Mr. Stanton had chosen as one of his assistants, in reward really for the “vigorous editorial championship” of the Secretary after Dana had quarrelled with Horace Greeley and resigned as managing editor of the Tribune. Dana was sent on a roving mission to visit the different armies in the West, and report confidentially to the Secretary upon their condition, as well as his own opinions of their commanders and the leading generals under them. His part was something like that of the committees which the Convention in the first French Revolution kept at the headquarters of the armies in the field. He had joined Rosecrans on the 11th of September, and was with him in the battle, but became separated from him on the 20th, when the rebels broke our right. He fled back to Chattanooga, reaching there earlier than Rosecrans, and telegraphed at once under the impression of the rout of McCook's and Crittenden's troops, and without any knowledge of Thomas's successful resistance in the afternoon, and on the assumption that the whole army was defeated when he left the field. His report commenced, “My report to-day is of deplorable importance. Chickamauga is as fatal a name as Bull Run,” and contained these passages: “Our troops turned and fled. It was wholesale panic. Vain were all attempts to rally them.” “Our wounded are all left behind, some 6000 in number.