" [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx.
pt. iv. p. 401. ]
With the evidence of the ability of the Army of the Cumberland to
hold its position at Chattanooga, there came a breathing spell and a
quick end of the panic. It was seen that there was time to get all
desirable reinforcements to Rosecrans from the West, and Hooker was
sent with two corps from the East, open lines of well-managed
railways making this a quicker assistance than could be given by
even a few days' marches over country roads. The culmination of the
peril had been caused by the inactivity of the Army of the Potomac,
which had permitted the transfer of Longstreet across four States;
and now Hooker was sent from that army by a still longer route
through the West to the vicinity of Bridgeport, thirty miles by rail
below Chattanooga on the Tennessee River, but nearer fifty by the
circuitous mountain roads actually used. It became evident also that
Burnside's army could only subsist by making the most of its own
lines of supply through Kentucky. To add its trains to those which
were toiling over the mountains between Chattanooga and Bridgeport,
would risk the starvation of the whole.
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