Today in History:

859 Series I Volume XXX-I Serial 50 - Chickamauga Part I

Page 859 Chapter XLII. THE CHICKAMAUGA CAMPAIGN.

single exception, made in my official report of the operations of the Reserve Corps in the battle of Chickamauga, and asking why your name did not appear in the list of "special mentions."

I was not aware that your name hade been so left out until my attention was called to this fact by your letter. After receiving it I examined a copy of the report as it appears on my letter-book, thinking that it might have been left out of the printed copy through a mistake of the compositor, and I was pained to find that it was not there. I can only account for the fact by supposing that it happened through the negligence of the person who copied the original of my report [which was destroyed], or by some such accident. I certainly mentioned your name, or at least intended to mention it, in my report, and to testify therein to your soldierly conduct and gallantry in the hottest part of one of the hardest fought battles of the age.

You certainly were not the person referred to.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

[G. GRANGER,]

Major-General, Commanding.


Numbers 199.

Report of Brig. General James B. Steedman, U. S. Army, commanding First Division.

HEADQUARTERS FIRST DIVISION, RESERVE CORPS, ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND, Chattanooga, September 26, 1863.

SIR: I have the honor to report the part taken by my command in the late battle of Chickamauga Hills.

In obedience to the order of the major-general commanding the corps, my command, consisting of the First and Second Brigades of the First Division of the Reserve Corps, the Twenty-second Regiment Michigan Volunteers, and Eighty-ninth Regiment Ohio Volunteers [serving temporarily under my command], and the Eighteenth Ohio Battery, and Company M, [First] Illinois Artillery, marched from Bridgeport, Ala., at 7 a.m. on the 13th, and reached Rossville, Ga., a distance of nearly 40 miles, at 11 a.m. on the 14th.

At 3 a.m. on the 17th, I moved, under the orders of the major-general commanding the corps, with six regiments and a battery, to reconnoiter the road in the direction of Ringgold, where we encountered and drove in the enemy's pickets. Crossing the East Chickamauga within three-fourths of a mile of Ringgold, I placed a section of artillery on the crest of the ridge commanding the town, and drove the enemy out of it. Discovering from the heavy clouds of dust rising from the roads leading to Tunnel Hill and La Fayette that large bodies of troops were moving, I deemed it prudent to return with my command as speedily as I could without indicating to the enemy an intention to retire hastily, and recrossing the Chickamauga, returned 6 miles toward Rossville, bivouacking for the night at Battle Spring. At 11 p.m., the enemy having followed us, threw 6 shells into my camp, and then, under the cover of darkness, speedily retired.


Page 859 Chapter XLII. THE CHICKAMAUGA CAMPAIGN.