Explore "Our Standard-Bearer" by Oliver Optic on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The stoutest heart would have been appalled at the situation in and around Chattanooga. Rosecrans had failed, and the army of the Cumberland was "bottled up" in the town. Grant, still feeble, and unable to move without his crutches, was ordered to extricate the force from its desperate dilemma; and not only to do this, but to save the place itself. One less resolute than he, or equally resolute, but less patriotic and devoted to the loyal cause, might well have exclaimed, "I pray thee have me excused! " Disabled as he was, he might have pointed to his crutches, and let them speak for him. They were not only a good excuse, but a good reason for not going upon such a perilous errand.
Could he have been borne at the head of the victorious veterans of Vicksburg, and gone into the beleaguered and starved town to the musical tramp of a large army, it would have looked more hopeful. But this could not be. Sherman had been started from Memphis with a heavy force -- the army of the Tennessee -- to assist Rosecrans, and he was still struggling through the country, beset with trials and difficulties. Not with this faithful friend and this tried army could the crippled general march into Chattanooga.