Today in History:

207 Series I Volume XXX-II Serial 51 - Chickamauga Part II

Page 207 Chapter XLII. THE CHICKAMAUGA CAMPAIGN.

On the 19th, the loss of the regiments was 1 officer and 8 men, leaving the actual number carried into action on the 20th, as follows:

Officers ................................... 153

Enlisted men ............................... 1,252

Aggregate .................................. 1,404

Respectfully submitted, in the absence of Brigadier-General Lewis.

FAYETTE HEWITT,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

OCTOBER 7, 1863.


Numbers 301.

Reports of Colonel Martin L. Stansel, Forty-first Alabama Infantry.

HDQRS. FORTY-FIRST REGT. ALABAMA VOLUNTEERS, Chattanooga, Tenn., September 27, 1863.

SIR: I have the honor to submit the following report of the part borne by this regiment in the battle of the 19th and 20th instant, near Chickamauga Creek, Ga.:

On the morning of the 19th, our brigade was drawn up in line of battle on the west bank of the creek, on the extreme left of the army, in support of Cobb's battery and a section of the Washington Artillery, where the enemy were massed in strong force, and, after a most spirited artillery duel between ours and the batteries of the enemy of about an hour's duration, in which this regiment lost 2 men severely wounded, we were ordered up to the extreme right of the army, as were also the other brigades of General Breckinridge's division.

We moved up to the right during the evening and night, and early on Sunday morning [the 20th], we were drawn up in line of battle about 400 yards in front of the enemy's line. Soon after, our line moved forward and drove the enemy from their position, and a short distance beyond the three left companies of my regiment and the company of Captain Ogden, which had been deployed as skirmishers in the early morning, and which had rallied on the left, came upon the enemy's breastworks, concealed in a thick undergrowth, and, owing to the galling fire from the front and the heavy enfilading fire to which they were exposed, they seemed to waver. Here General Helm ordered me from the center to the left to move these four companies forward, and the other companies moved forward under command of Major Nash. Upon going to the left, and that many of them had already been killed and wounded, and in order to extricate them from their perilous position I moved them out by the right flank, and rejoined the balance of the regiment as soon as possible, which I found halted about 100 yards from where I left them.

At about 5 p.m. we were with our brigade, constituting the center battalion in the final charge upon the fortifications above alluded to occupied by the enemy, when they were completely routed from their works and driven back for miles, resulting in a great victory to our arms.


Page 207 Chapter XLII. THE CHICKAMAUGA CAMPAIGN.