When Grant reached Chattanooga on October 23d, wet and dirty, but well, he realized as he saw the dead horses and the hollow-cheeked men how far the starving process had gone. Although he was on crutches from injuries received from a runaway horse, yet his influence was immediately felt throughout the whole army. He was a compeller of men like Napoleon and, like him, had only to ride down the line and let his men see that he was there in order to accomplish the impossible. He at once sent a message to Sherman, who was coming slowly along from Vicksburg. His messenger paddled down the Tennessee River in a canoe under a guerrilla-fire during his whole journey and handed Sherman a dispatch from Grant which said, "Drop everything and move your entire force toward Stevenson." Sherman marched as only he could. When his army reached the Tennessee River he laid a pontoon bridge thirteen hundred and fifty feet in length in a half day, rushed his army across, captured all the Confederate pickets and was ready to join Grant in the great battle of Chattanooga. General Hooker marched in from one side on November 24th and fought the great battle of Lookout Mountain above the clouds, through driving mists and rains and on the morning of November 25th the stars and stripes waved from the lofty peak of Lookout Mountain. The next day eighteen thousand men without any orders charged up the almost perpendicular side of Missionary Ridge and carried it, and the three-day battle of Chattanooga was ended in the complete defeat of Bragg's army and the rescue of the men whom he thought he had cornered beyond all hopes of escape.