“The desperate and incessant attack of General Sherman was triumphantly successful. It was directed against, in the words of Grant, ‘the enemy’s most northern and vital point,’ and ‘was vigorously kept up all day.’ Sherman’s position not only threatened the right flank of the enemy, but also his rear and stores at Chickamauga. The enemy, therefore, began very early to mass his line down against the single gallant storming party. ‘At three P. M.,’ writes Sherman, ‘column after column of the enemy was streaming toward me, gun after gun poured its concentric shot on us from every hill and spur that gave a view of any part of the ground.’ Long and anxiously he waited for the centre to open its part of the contest, and meanwhile held stubbornly to his bloody ridge under murderous fire. Grant, keeping his eye fixed on this key point, sent a division to Sherman’s support, but he sent it back with the note that ‘he had all the force necessary.’ Now at last the time had come for seizing victory out of doubtful battle. Hooker on the right had gallantly swept round the enemy’s left. ‘Discovering that the enemy,’ says General Grant, ‘in his desperation to defeat or resist the progress of Sherman, was weakening his centre on Missionary Ridge, determined me to order the advance at once.’ It was ordered and gallantly executed. The huge masses with which Sherman was contending, now, to their dismay, found Thomas on their left flank, and the centre of their long line broken in. They turned; but it was too late. The white line of Thomas’s musketry swept up from ridge to ridge, and the army of Bragg was flung back, in overwhelming defeat, into the valleys of Georgia. Thus was the great victory of Chattanooga won.