Today in History:

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

Page 490 KY.,SW.VA.,TENN.,MISS.,N.ALA., AND N.GA. Chapter XLII.

on watch) on the ensanguined field we had contested and won during the evening. The night being unusually cold and the circumstances by which we were surrounded, our bivouac being amid the dying and the dead, and the fact of this being the third night the command had been without fires, all tended to make the night pass gloomy and cheerless.

All night long the busy sound of the enemy's axes and implements of construction warned us that they were preparing to give us a warm reception on the morrow from behind and intrenched position. Our ubiquitous general, early in the saddle, our line was in readiness before day, and as morning dawned it showed a band of eager and determined countenances who had resolved to finish well on this bright Sabbath the work they had so nobly begun. Some hours before day troops could be heard moving from left to right, leaving us (Johnson's brigade) almost on the extreme left of our line.

Sunday, September 20.-Again the battle opened briskly on the right at 7 a.m., gradually extending to center, and from center to left, until about 10 a.m. our skirmishers were driven in. Then our line became engaged from behind its works. An advanced was shortly afterward ordered, and as one man the entire line rose, pushed forward, and engaged the enemy, and after a conflict of about fifteen minutes we drove him a second time across the Chattanooga and La Fayette road. The Twenty-fifth Tennessee Regiment at this point was confronted by the One hundredth Illinois Regiment (under a colonel - F. A. Bartleson - with but one arm), which, being routed, had taken shelter behind a picket and garden fence and houses adjoining. Here our charge was so impetuous that this colonel, all of his officers, and most of his men fell into our hands, and Yankee liberality supplied the necessities of the officers of the Twenty-fifth Regiment with swords, belts, pistols,&c.

One we pushed through an open field to a wooded slope, where they made another stand; but the impulse given to our victorious column was irresistible. We drove them slowly through a densely wooded thicket, passing over their dead and wounded and large quantities of small-arms, our men replenishing their boxes from those of the enemy's dead. Passing on through a dense pine thicket under a constant fire we halted, moved about 200 yards to the left into the edge of an open field with extended fields to the right for the distance of at least 1 mile. Here was presented to the eye the most magnificent scene of the day, brigade after brigade emerging en echelon from the woods and sweeping across the extended area of clearing with a wildness of enthusiasm that struck panic to the hearts of the confronting column. They fled, leaving many pieces of artillery in the hands of our fortunate comrades to the right.

On passing through or across this extended field, we approached a belt of woods where it was expected the enemy might have sought shelter, but to our astonishment he had fled still beyond. Here we halted for a very few moments, dressed our line, and advanced through still another large field, which was located on a steep hill or rising ground, on the summit of which we were again halted for the purpose of changing direction. During our halt here our skirmishers sent to the rear several of the enemy's mounted men.

At this point we learned the line on either side of us had not kept up with rapid advance of Johnson's brigade, consequently were ordered to rest on our arms. So far had we advanced it was deemed


Page 490 KY.,SW.VA.,TENN.,MISS.,N.ALA., AND N.GA. Chapter XLII.