From The New-York Times October 28, 1863:
Another Speech by Major-Gen. Rosecrans.
CINCINNATI, Tuesday, Oct. 27.
Gen. ROSECRANS, in a speech at the Merchants’ Exchange yesterday, where he was most enthusiastically received, said, it was his firm belief that if the forces recently sent to Chattanooga had been ordered there before, as they ought to have been, the backbone of the rebellion ere this would have been broken.
The General left for his home at Yellow Springs last evening.
Well, undoubtedly, the Union force at Chattanooga sure has been beefed up since the disaster at Chickamauga back in September. Seven Score and Ten has pointed out the the Lincoln administration sort of left it up to General Grant whether or not to replace General Rosecrans, then it immediately replaced General Rosecrans on its own initiative. The October 31, 1863 issue of Harper’s Weekly (at Son of the South) portrayed Rosecrans’ replacement as an example of President Lincoln’s increasing decisiveness and the grudging respect even Copperheads seem to be giving him as Commander-in-Chief:
HARPER’S WEEKLY.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1863.
THE REMOVAL OF ROSECRANS.
GENERAL ROSECRANS has been removed from the command of the Army of the Cumberland, and General Thomas, the hero of Chicamauga, appointed in his place—General Grant taking the supreme command of all the armies on the Mississippi and in East and Southern Tennessee. The announcement has taken every, one by surprise. But whereas, some months ago, the removal of a popular general from his command would have been a signal for a popular uproar, now even the Copperheads can barely get up a feeble hiss at the change; and the public at large, fully satisfied that the President knows what is required by the emergency, and is doing his duty faithfully, accept the event without murmur.
Whatever may have been the faults of General Rosecrans, it is encouraging to see that the President, when satisfied that he ought to be removed, had the courage to remove him, without hesitation or explanation to the public. …
There is a lesson to be learned by the people from this event, and that is, to beware of accepting the newspaper and popular estimate of generals as the true one. Up to the hour of Rosecrans’s removal he was believed to be nearly perfection. He was called prudent, daring, invincible, loyal to the back-bone, dextrous as a strategist, and always obedient to his superiors. He was contrasted with other generals, to their invariable disparagement. When he failed at Chicamauga, the Copperheads—whose implacable foe he had proved himself—threw the whole blame on Government, and entirely exonerated him. … that, so far from obeying orders promptly and cheerfully, he frequently disregarded the commands of the President; and that, so far from being the chivalric soldier we pictured him, he left the battle-field at Chicamauga in the middle of the fight, and was in bed at Chattanooga, snug and safe, when the gallant Thomas, with his handful of heroes, was stemming the furious onset of the rebel army. If all this should be presently discovered to be the truth, what shall we then say of popular estimates of generals?
