Part 1 (2/2)

Now, keep this date carefully in mind, September 9th, 1863, while the battle of Chickamauga was not begun until ten days after that, on September 19th, 1863. I believed then, and I believe now, that General Rosecrans could have put the Army of the c.u.mberland into Chattanooga by the evening of September 10th, 1863, without the loss of a man or a wheel. I know that he could have done that, and the battle of Chickamauga, with its awful loss of life, have been wholly avoided. It was a useless battle, and because it was useless and disastrous Rosecrans was relieved from the command of the Army of the c.u.mberland, and was never again restored to favor as an army commander. These views are not new; they were entertained and expressed by me at that time, and I have entertained them ever since, and never hesitated to express them. The battle of Chickamauga was a useless battle, the broken and shattered Army of the c.u.mberland driven from the field and cooped up and nearly starved to death in Chattanooga, that Rosecrans was in full possession of on September 9th, 1863, and which might have been held by him with his full army intact, with abundant force to protect his line of supplies, and where he never could have been or would have been a.s.saulted by the Confederate army. That was my deliberate judgment at that time, and, it will be, in my opinion, the deliberate judgment of history. My opinion may not be worth much, because I am technically not an educated soldier. Neither was John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough, the greatest soldier England ever produced, an educated soldier. He was absolutely without any military education whatever when he was placed at the head of the English army.

Common sense is often quite as valuable as technical military knowledge, and by every rule of common sense, Rosecrans should have occupied the evacuated city of Chattanooga when he became in full possession of it on September 9th, 1863, and have avoided entirely the b.l.o.o.d.y and disastrous battle of Chickamauga.

My orders from General Rosecrans were to enter the city of Chattanooga, obtain all the information possible concerning the evacuation by Bragg, and to return to him with my regiment. When I was ready to start back the road was filled with Crittenden's corps of the Army of the c.u.mberland, that followed me into Chattanooga, and when just ready to return I was ordered by General Crittenden to go up the Tennessee River to Fire Island, ten miles, and enable Wilder with his brigade to cross. I told Crittenden of my order to return to General Rosecrans, but he gave me positive orders, and I obeyed, driving small parties of the Confederate cavalry before me until I reached a famous grape plantation eight miles north of Chattanooga, where I learned that Wilder's Brigade was already crossing the river; putting my regiment into camp I rode forward to communicate with Wilder, and was by him positively ordered to march with his brigade the next day, which I did, camping at night at Grayville, almost directly east of Chattanooga, and during the night I received positive orders to report with my regiment to General Rosecrans at La Fayette, Georgia, and moving before daylight on September 11th I struck the Confederate pickets about two miles north of Ringgold. Sending word back to Wilder I dismounted my regiment, when the enemy mounted and moved out to charge my line--waiting until they were close upon me my repeating Spencer rifles halted their charge and turned it back. Then they formed in two lines to renew the charge when Wilder came up with a section of 10-pound rifled cannon, and opened immediately. Instantly the artillery fire was answered, but not a shot came near us; firing again with our artillery, instantly came the response. We did not know it then, but Crittenden's troops were approaching Ringgold from the west and we from the north, and it was Crittenden's guns we heard, while Forrest retreated through Ringgold gap. Had Crittenden's troops and Wilder's Brigade been acting in concert, General Forrest and his cavalry would have been captured at Ringgold. Sending out a company on the La Fayette road, the enemy was found in strong force at the Chickamauga River, and my regiment marched to Rossville, reaching there after dark. Confident that Rosecrans was in Chattanooga, and not in La Fayette, I sent officers to Chattanooga before daylight on the 12th of September, but they did not return to me, and an hour after daylight I took the road to La Fayette, striking the enemy in strong force at Gordon's Mill on the Chickamauga. I was without corn for my animals, and finding a cornfield I fed my horses and filled the nose-bags with corn, and was just about to cross the river with my regiment when I received a written order from General Rosecrans to send my regiment to the foot of Lookout Mountain and report in person to General Rosecrans at Chattanooga, which I did, and was ordered to find Thomas somewhere on Lookout Mountain, and marching all night down the mountain I communicated with Thomas at daylight on September 13th, and sent word to General Rosecrans at Chattanooga. During the day my regiment followed General Thomas down the mountain on its east side at Dug Gap. On the 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th of September with my regiment I scouted the country between Dug Gap and Gordon's Mill, finding the crossings of the Chickamauga always heavily guarded by the enemy. I was never ordered to scout south and east of the Chickamauga River. I never knew why. No Union soldiers ever were sent by Rosecrans south of that river so far as I know. The woods were full of Rebel spies pretending to be deserters, and by the order of General Rosecrans none of them were arrested or interfered with in any way, as Rosecrans believed that Bragg's army was disintegrating and going home, and General Rosecrans thought that the Rebel spies were deserters from Bragg's army. They were not. They were well and strong, and well clothed, and such men seldom desert from any army. I never could understand the infatuation of a Union General who by his own official orders filled his camps with spies from the forces opposing him.

Early on the morning of September 19th, 1863, the Army of the c.u.mberland began its race for Chattanooga, where that army might have been and should have been safely placed ten days before that time. In that race the Army of the c.u.mberland was attacked in flank by Bragg's army. The Army of the c.u.mberland would repulse the enemy at some point, and immediately move on toward Chattanooga. All day long it was a continuous race. At about 10 a.m. my regiment was ordered by General Rosecrans to take position and rest in a field southeast of Widow Glenn's house, and putting my regiment in the field, I sent out a skirmish line into the woods in my front, and captured a prisoner from the Confederate skirmish line that was found west of the La Fayette road. The prisoner was brought immediately to me. He was a Virginia boy, badly frightened at first, but he soon told me that he belonged to Longstreet's corps from the Virginia Army, and detailed to me how he came by cars, where they disembarked, and how they marched to the battlefield. I took the prisoner, the first one captured from Longstreet's corps, to General Rosecrans at his then headquarters at Widow Glenn's house, and told him that I had a prisoner from Longstreet's corps, when Rosecrans flew into a pa.s.sion, denounced the little boy as a liar, declared that Longstreet's corps was not there.

The little boy prisoner was so frightened that he would not speak a word. In sorrow I turned away, and joined my regiment. Rosecrans found out that Longstreet's corps was there.

Shortly I was ordered to march rapidly toward Chattanooga, and I suppose a mile or so northeast of Widow Glenn's house I met General Joseph J. Reynolds, who told me that King's Brigade of his division was broken by the enemy, and ordered me to dismount and try to stop the enemy that was pouring through our lines, which I did, and the Ninety-Second, with their Spencer rifles, easily, on three occasions, drove the enemy back in its immediate front as they emerged from the woods east of the La Fayette road; but they swarmed by my right flank in great force, and I was compelled to withdraw. I found thousands of Union troops in disorder floating off through the woods toward Chattanooga, but I sought and found the left flank of the Confederate troops that had broken through our lines, and reported to Colonel Wilder at Vinings, and was ordered by him to put my regiment in line dismounted on the left of his brigade.

During the night of the 19th of September Rosecrans withdrew McCook's corps on his right, and formed a new line on the low hills southwest of Widow Glenn's, Wilder withdrawing his brigade and forming a new line south of McCook's corps; but my regiment mounted before daylight covered the entire front of Wilder's Brigade, ordered to fall back to the new line when pressed by the enemy.

Daylight came; with it white flags in our front where the Confederates were burying their dead. An hour after daylight I discovered a heavy column of the enemy, in column of companies doubled on the center, slowly and silently creeping past my left flank toward the left flank of McCook's corps. I repeatedly sent him information of the approach of that heavy column of the enemy, but he testily declared that there was no truth in it, and refused to send a skirmish line of his own, that he might easily have done, and found out for himself. When Longstreet's corps sprang with a yell upon the left flank of McCook's corps, the line in my front advanced, and I retired to join Wilder as ordered. McCook's corps was wiped off the field without any attempt at real resistance, and floated off from the battlefield like flecks of foam upon a river. His artillerymen cut the traces, and leaving the guns, rode away toward Chattanooga. The rout of McCook's corps was complete. I found Wilder, who proposed to charge through Longstreet's corps with his brigade, and join Thomas on Snodgra.s.s Hill, but Charles A. Dana, a.s.sistant Secretary of War, rode up and ordered Wilder not to make the charge, declaring the battle was lost, and ordering Wilder to Chattanooga by the Dry Valley road. Lingering long on the field, taking up the Union hospitals at Crawfish Spring, and taking with him the abandoned artillery of McCook's corps, Wilder sullenly retired, followed by a light force of the Confederate cavalry.

The heroic conduct of Thomas on Snodgra.s.s Hill saved the Army of the c.u.mberland from total rout and defeat, but that gallant soldier with his jaded but brave troops sought safety in flight to Rossville Gap under the cover of the friendly darkness of the night.

The useless battle had been fought, the useless sacrifice of thousands of brave men of the Army of the c.u.mberland had been made, and the shattered remnant of the Army of the c.u.mberland in Chattanooga, where the entire army might have been and ought to have been on the evening of September 10th, 1863, without the loss of a man or a wheel.

I cannot linger to tell how Hooker and Howard came from the Army of the Potomac to rescue the Army of the c.u.mberland from its terrible plight: how the Army of the Tennessee hastened under Sherman from Vicksburg, of the battle above the clouds by Hooker's brave soldiers, or how the brave men of the Army of the c.u.mberland, without orders and against orders, sprung forward, up, and up, and up, for three hundred feet to the very mouths of the Confederate cannon belching grape and canister in their faces, sweeping Bragg and his Confederate Army off from Missionary Ridge. It is a magnificent story that the surviving soldiers of the grand old Army of the c.u.mberland will not cease telling while life lasts.

The volunteer soldiers were not only brave always, but they were sensible always. They complained very loudly when they had a right to complain, and they submitted to every hards.h.i.+p without complaint when there was necessity for it. Let me ill.u.s.trate that. After the battle of Chickamauga my regiment was sent north of Chattanooga, on the north side of the river, to guard the river for forty miles. We were without rations for animals or men, living on a few grains of corn gathered from the rubbish left in the fields where all the corn had been taken long before, and unripe chestnuts, that we had to cut down the chestnut trees to gather. But we had a pack mule train, seventy-five mules with pack-saddles, and I sent the train over the mountains to bring rations from Bridgeport for the men of my regiment. One night we heard that the pack mule train loaded with rations was encamped on the mountain above Poe's Tavern, and would be down in the morning about 10 o'clock. That was joyful news for the men of my regiment. But at 8 o'clock the next morning I received a letter from General Garfield, Chief of Staff of the Army of the c.u.mberland, ordering me not to take one ration from the train, but to send the train on to Chattanooga. I gave the information to the men of my regiment. Did they complain? No.

Not one man made one word of complaint. When the train came along about 10 o'clock, without any order of any kind, the men of the Ninety-Second lined up by the side of the road, swinging their hats and cheering when their own rations went by and onward toward Chattanooga, where their brave comrades of the Army of the c.u.mberland could not get green chestnuts to eat. That was the kind of men that composed the volunteer Army of the Union who saved the Republic.

Some of them are here tonight. They compose your Grand Army post here in Mendota. Honor them while yet you may, for, in only a few years more, the last one of that Grand Army will have gone beyond the dark river.

But the young men of today are as patriotic as the young men of 1861, and if the time ever comes when the Republic is in danger they will spring to arms and repeat the heroic deeds of their fathers, and the Republic will last ”until the sun grows cold, and the stars are old, and the leaves of the judgment book unfold.”

[Ill.u.s.tration]

<script>