Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

The story of the disaster is an old one. It is hardly necessary to tell how Wood, in the main line on the right of Brannan, received an order from Rosecrans to support Reynolds, the second division in line to the left of Wood; how the gallant soldier hesitated to obey an order from which such disaster might come; how McCook, chief of corps, told Wood the order was imperative, and promised to put a reserve division into the line to take his place; how Wood withdrew from the line, as ordered, at the fatal moment when the enemy was preparing to attack; how the furious foe pressed through the gap, cut the army in two, struck the lines to right and left in flank and rear, swept the centre, the right wing and the reserves off the field, and doubled up and crushed the left wing as far as Reynolds's division, whose fortune has been told. All this is familiar enough now, but those who remained on the field in the four divisions of the left knew nothing of it then. They only knew that the line was broken beyond Reynolds, and that, although somewhere in the distance was a force which had not yet fled nor surrendered, they were left to bear alone the battle against Bragg's victorious army. The odds were five or six to one--perhaps more, maybe less. It did not matter to be precise: Bragg had men enough to put a double line of troops entirely around the four divisions. That was enough.

It was after midday when the disaster was complete and the divisions of Baird, Johnson, Palmer and Reynolds were able to understand the situation. I need not recount in detail the repeated attempts of the enemy to crush the line of the four divisions at one point and another. If the reader can recall the description of the first attack on Palmer's division, he will have a very fair example of the work which busied us at intervals during those long hours. The enemy was, of course, not unaware of his great success in dividing the army and driving off the greater part of it; nor was he lacking in efforts to improve the advantage by destroying the divisions which yet confronted him. Every attack, however, resulted in failure, and the assailants retired each time with heavy losses. At length it was evident to us that it had become difficult to bring even Longstreet's boasted troops up to attacks which met such sure and bloody repulses. There were but four divisions against an army, but the four would not be taken or driven.

With hands and faces blackened by the smoke and dust of battle those men stood devotedly to their posts, their ranks thinned by every assault, but their aim as fatal as ever. But one dread possessed them: ammunition ran short, and there were no supplies. In the intervals between the enemy's assaults the cartridge-boxes of dead comrades along the line and in the open field, where were the fierce struggles of the morning, were emptied of their contents to replenish the failing stock of the survivors. More precious than food and water, though they were sorely needed, were these inheritances from the dead.

The long afternoon wore slowly away. Night could not come too soon, but it seemed that never before was it so tardy. Officers and men were tortured by thirst. Their tongues were swollen and their lips black and distended, often to bursting. Speech became difficult or absolutely impossible. Officers mumbled their commands, and prayed silently for darkness to save them from enforced surrender or flight when the last cartridge should be spent.

Meantime, the relentless but cautious foe was carefully feeling his way around the flanks, apparently unwilling to venture boldly into the rear of the little army which he could not move by attack in front. A group of officers stood by their horses in rear of Hazen's brigade when the crack of an Enfield rifle was heard from the woods in rear across the open field. A bullet came whizzing into the group and killed a colonel's horse. Other shots followed from the same direction. The woods behind us were evidently occupied by the enemy's skirmishers. A captain volunteered to take his company and clear the woods, but ammunition was too scarce to waste on sharpshooters.

Word came at last, in some way, that Thomas, whose firing we heard far to the right and rear, was sorely pressed. A consultation was held by the four division generals. They needed a commander, but who should it be? Who would take command of that beleaguered force and undertake to extricate it from its surrounding peril or deliver it over to Thomas? Would Palmer? No. Would Reynolds? No. The stern duty of fighting their divisions until they could fight no longer, and doing then whatever desperate thing might be possible--that they would not fail in; but that responsibility was as great as they cared to assume. Up came Hazen then. "I'll take my brigade across that interval," said he, "and find Thomas if he's there." Palmer objected: it would make a gap in his line; it would expose one of his brigades to a thousand chances of destruction--for who could tell what forces of the enemy were in that interval or watching it?--and finally, it would take away the brigade which had most ammunition, for Hazen had husbanded his store. But something must be done. If the four divisions could hold out until night, somebody must command them and take them out if it could be done. Thomas was the proper commander, and he was needed. It was agreed that Hazen should make the attempt.

The brigade was withdrawn from the line which it had faithfully held all day, and some disposition made to fill the gap. Hazen formed his regiments in close masses, faced them to the right and rear, covered his front with a trusty battalion as skirmishers, waved an adieu to the comrades left behind, and plunged into the unknown forest in the direction of Thomas's firing. On and on went the brigade and came nearer and nearer to the ridge which Thomas held. Suddenly, the skirmishers strike obliquely an opposing line. They brush it away in an instant, but the warning is not lost. Keep more to the rear: no fighting now, though you should whip three to one. The fate of the four divisions rests upon that. With quick and steady tread the regiments move on. They clear the wood at last, climb the end of a ridge through a field of standing corn, and burst into an open field at the summit amid the wild cheers of Thomas's exhausted men, while Thomas himself, beloved of all the army, rides down to take Hazen by the hand. And not a moment too soon.

Almost at the very instant Thomas's skirmishers along the front of the ridge broke out into a rattling fire, and were seen falling back. The enemy was about to make his final effort, and it was to be against the flank where now lay Hazen's brigade. Quickly deploying his regiments, Hazen placed them in four lines, closed one upon another, and the men lay flat upon their faces. The yell of the enemy was heard in the wood below, and in a moment the declivity in front was covered with the heavy lines of the assailants. Then the first of Hazen's regiments was brought to its feet and poured its volley straight into the faces of the oncoming foe. The next regiment, and the next, and then the last, followed in quick succession. The echoes of the last volley had hardly died away before the enemy, who came on so confident and so strong, had disappeared, crushed and broken, into the forest, leaving the hillside strewn with his dead and wounded.

So ended the fighting. Night came down and shrouded the fierce combatants from each other's sight.

The dusky ranks take up the unfamiliar march with faces from the foe. Their drums are silent, and their bugles voice-less as the spirit-horns which marshal their heroic dead upon the farther shore. The shadowy ranks pass on into the night. Bearing their close-furled banners and their empty guns, they pass on into the sad and silent night of Chickamauga to await the glorious sun of Mission Ridge.

ROBERT LEWIS KIMBERLY.

NOTE.--The writer is aware that this narrative of the battle of
Chickamauga differs so materially from the commonly-received
impressions of that event that it ought to be supported by more
than his own authority. The reader will observe that the main
narrative is made up of the experiences of one command, that to
which the writer belonged, and of which he can therefore speak
as of things which he saw. For the statements of the general
battle reference is made to official reports, as follows: (1) In
regard to the first day's battle, see report of General W.S.
Rosecrans, which may be found in vol. vii. of Putnam's
_Rebellion Record_, p. 222 and following pages. (2) In regard to
the complete isolation of the four divisions of the left during
the second day, and the final opening of communication with
General Thomas, see General W.B. Hazen's official report on p.
238 of the volume above quoted.

The writer also quotes, by permission, from letters from
Generals Hazen and Thomas J. Wood, addressed to him within the
present year. General Hazen says: "Do not forget about the
length of time Thomas was cut off from us--how we could hear
nothing from him; how neither Reynolds nor Palmer would assume
command," etc. General Wood says, in reference to the great
disaster on the second day: "About 11 A.M. I received the
following order from General Rosecrans: 'The commanding general
directs that you close up on Reynolds as fast as possible, and
support him.' As there was an entire division (Brannan's)
between my division and Reynolds, I could only close upon the
latter and support him by withdrawing my division from line and
passing in rear of Brannan to the rear of Reynolds. This I did.
Of course I knew it was an order involving perhaps the most
momentous consequences, but General McCook concurred with me
that it was so emphatic and positive as to demand instant
obedience. I write you stubborn facts, and you can use them as
such."

General Wood has been so severely criticised for his obedience
to this fatal order that perhaps I should add this further
explanation, contained in the letter from which I have quoted
above: "After the battle was over, and it was apparent that
Rosecrans's ill-considered order had led to a disaster, he
offered as an explanation of it the statement that some
staff-officer had reported to him that Brannan was out of line,
and that he intended I should close to the left on Reynolds, and
that I overlooked this direction to close to the left on
Reynolds. Certainly, I overlooked it, or rather I did not see
it, for it was not there to be seen. On the contrary, I was
ordered to close up on Reynolds, and for a purpose--viz., to
support him. I remark also that it was impossible for any man,
on reading Rosecrans's order to me, to even remotely conjecture
that it was based on the supposition that Brannan was out of
line. He had previously ordered me to rest my left on Brannan's
right, and I had reported to him that I had done so. Colonel
Starling (of Crittenden's staff) testified before the
McCook-Crittenden court of inquiry that he was with Rosecrans at
the time the latter directed the order to be sent to me, and
told him that Brannan was not out of line."

THE ATONEMENT OF LEAM DUNDAS.

BY MRS. E. LYNN LINTON, AUTHOR OF "PATRICIA KEMBALL."