CHICKAMAUGA
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA
Sunday morning of that September day, the sun rose over the eastern hills
clear and beautiful. The day itself seemed to have a Sabbath-day look
about it. The battlefield was in a rough and broken country, with trees
and undergrowth, that ever since the creation had never been disturbed by
the ax of civilized man. It looked wild, weird, uncivilized.
Our corps (Polk's), being in the engagement the day before, were held in
reserve. Reader, were you ever held in reserve of an attacking army?
To see couriers dashing backward and forward; to hear the orders given
to the brigades, regiments and companies; to see them forward in line of
battle, the battle-flags waving; to hear their charge, and then to hear
the shock of battle, the shot and shell all the while sizzing, and
zipping, and thudding, and screaming, and roaring, and bursting, and
passing right over your heads; to see the litter corps bringing back the
wounded continually, and hear them tell how their command was being cut
to pieces, and that every man in a certain regiment was killed, and to
see a cowardly colonel (as we saw on this occasion--he belonged to
Longstreet's corps) come dashing back looking the very picture of terror
and fear, exclaiming, "O, men, men, for God's sake go forward and help
my men! they are being cut all to pieces! we can't hold our position.
O, for God's sake, please go and help my command!" To hear some of our
boys ask, "What regiment is that? What regiment is that?" He replies,
such and such regiment. And then to hear some fellow ask, "Why ain't
you with them, then, you cowardly puppy? Take off that coat and those
chicken guts; coo, sheep; baa, baa, black sheep; flicker, flicker;
ain't you ashamed of yourself? flicker, flicker; I've got a notion to
take my gun and kill him," etc. Every word of this is true; it actually
happened. But all that could demoralize, and I may say intimidate a
soldier, was being enacted, and he not allowed to participate. How we
were moved from one position to another, but always under fire; our
nerves strung to their utmost tension, listening to the roar of battle in
our immediate front, to hear it rage and then get dimmer until it seems
to die out entirely; then all at once it breaks out again, and you think
now in a very few minutes you will be ordered into action, and then all
at once we go double-quicking to another portion of the field, the battle
raging back from the position we had left. General Leonidas Polk rides
up and happening to stop in our front, some of the boys halloo out, "Say,
General, what command is that which is engaged now?" The general kindly
answers, "That is Longstreet's corps. He is driving them this way,
and we will drive them that way, and crush them between the 'upper and
nether millstone.'" Turning to General Cheatham, he said, "General,
move your division and attack at once." Everything is at once set in
motion, and General Cheatham, to give the boys a good send-off, says,
"Forward, boys, and give 'em h--l." General Polk also says a good word,
and that word was, "Do as General Cheatham says, boys." (You know he was
a preacher and couldn't curse.) After marching in solid line, see-sawing,
right obliqueing, left obliqueing, guide center and close up; commence
firing--fire at will; charge and take their breastworks; our pent-up
nervousness and demoralization of all day is suddenly gone. We raise
one long, loud, cheering shout and charge right upon their breastworks.
They are pouring their deadly missiles into our advancing ranks from
under their head-logs. We do not stop to look around to see who is
killed and wounded, but press right up their breastworks, and plant our
battle-flag upon it. They waver and break and run in every direction,
when General John C. Breckinridge's division, which had been supporting
us, march up and pass us in full pursuit of the routed and flying Federal
army.
AFTER THE BATTLE
We remained upon the battlefield of Chickamauga all night. Everything
had fallen into our hands. We had captured a great many prisoners and
small arms, and many pieces of artillery and wagons and provisions.
The Confederate and Federal dead, wounded, and dying were everywhere
scattered over the battlefield. Men were lying where they fell, shot in
every conceivable part of the body. Some with their entrails torn out
and still hanging to them and piled up on the ground beside them, and
they still alive. Some with their under jaw torn off, and hanging by a
fragment of skin to their cheeks, with their tongues lolling from their
mouth, and they trying to talk. Some with both eyes shot out, with
one eye hanging down on their cheek. In fact, you might walk over the
battlefield and find men shot from the crown of the head to the tip end
of the toe. And then to see all those dead, wounded and dying horses,
their heads and tails drooping, and they seeming to be so intelligent as
if they comprehended everything. I felt like shedding a tear for those
innocent dumb brutes.
Reader, a battlefield, after the battle, is a sad and sorrowful sight
to look at. The glory of war is but the glory of battle, the shouts,
and cheers, and victory.
A soldier's life is not a pleasant one. It is always, at best, one of
privations and hardships. The emotions of patriotism and pleasure hardly
counterbalance the toil and suffering that he has to undergo in order
to enjoy his patriotism and pleasure. Dying on the field of battle and
glory is about the easiest duty a soldier has to undergo. It is the
living, marching, fighting, shooting soldier that has the hardships of
war to carry. When a brave soldier is killed he is at rest. The living
soldier knows not at what moment he, too, may be called on to lay down
his life on the altar of his country. The dead are heroes, the living
are but men compelled to do the drudgery and suffer the privations
incident to the thing called "glorious war."
A NIGHT AMONG THE DEAD
We rested on our arms where the battle ceased. All around us everywhere
were the dead and wounded, lying scattered over the ground, and in many
places piled in heaps. Many a sad and heart-rending scene did I witness
upon this battlefield of Chickamauga. Our men died the death of heroes.
I sometimes think that surely our brave men have not died in vain.
It is true, our cause is lost, but a people who loved those brave and
noble heroes should ever cherish their memory as men who died for them.
I shed a tear over their memory. They gave their all to their country.
Abler pens than mine must write their epitaphs, and tell of their glories
and heroism. I am but a poor writer, at best, and only try to tell of
the events that I saw.
One scene I now remember, that I can imperfectly relate. While a detail
of us were passing over the field of death and blood, with a dim lantern,
looking for our wounded soldiers to carry to the hospital, we came
across a group of ladies, looking among the killed and wounded for their
relatives, when I heard one of the ladies say, "There they come with
their lanterns." I approached the ladies and asked them for whom they
were looking. They told me the name, but I have forgotten it. We passed
on, and coming to a pile of our slain, we had turned over several of our
dead, when one of the ladies screamed out, "O, there he is! Poor fellow!
Dead, dead, dead!" She ran to the pile of slain and raised the dead
man's head and placed it on her lap and began kissing him and saying, "O,
O, they have killed my darling, my darling, my darling! O, mother,
mother, what must I do! My poor, poor darling! O, they have killed him,
they have killed him!" I could witness the scene no longer. I turned
and walked away, and William A. Hughes was crying, and remarked, "O,
law me; this war is a terrible thing." We left them and began again
hunting for our wounded. All through that long September night we
continued to carry off our wounded, and when the morning sun arose over
the eastern hills, the order came to march to Missionary Ridge.