All of these efforts had failed. Chief among them was the attempt upon Pocotaligo and Coosawhatchie, which was made with a force of five thousand men on the twenty-second of October, 1862. This attempt was defeated by a meager force of 350 men reinforced to 700, who stood all day against eight times their number in defense of a causeway 225 yards long, which ended in a bridge on the Confederate side. The bridge was torn up by the Confederates and hour after hour during the long day they stood to their guns and swept away every column that was formed to advance along the causeway and rebuild the crossing. CHAPTER XLII THE CAMPAIGNS OF CHICKAMAUGA AND CHATTANOOGA While Lee was fighting his tremendous campaigns in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, and while Grant was battling for Vicksburg, two other armies confronted each other near the southern border line of Tennessee. Rosecrans had command of the Federal forces near Murfreesboro, and Braxton Bragg was in charge of the Confederates at Chattanooga. The position of each of these armies was a serious threat to the other side. If Bragg should be left unoccupied by his enemy it was easily within his power to make a dangerous dash towards Cincinnati or Louisville, while if he should withdraw from Rosecrans's front there was nothing to prevent that general from "marching through Georgia," to Mobile or Savannah or Charleston. Grant, besieging Vicksburg, asked for reinforcements from Rosecrans by way of warding off that blow in the rear which he feared that Johnston might deliver and at the same time Johnston begged for reinforcements from Bragg in order that he might deliver such a blow. Each of the commanders at Murfreesboro and Chattanooga realized the necessity of remaining where he was so long at least as his adversary should remain. The result was that neither sent the reinforcements for which his brother in the field was so clamorously calling. These two armies for a long time stood watching each other, each waiting for the other to make some movement that would give it opportunity. In the meanwhile the cavalry on either side was engaged in making some of the most picturesque raids that were at any time made during the struggle. On both sides the cavalry had by this time learned its business, and realized its possibilities of independent action in the enemy's country. The Federal cavalier, Grierson, swept through Mississippi carrying desolation wherever he went. The Confederates, Wheeler and Forrest, rushed hurricanelike through the country north, battling here and there with such forces as they met. Gordon Granger and Colonel Streight on the Federal side were swinging swords almost continually.